The Case of Nanguan Music in Postwar Taiwan

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Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 95 Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention: The Case of Nanguan Music in Postwar Taiwan

Wang Ying-fen Associate Professor National Taiwan University Graduate Institute of Musicology

Abstract: Amateur music clubs had been an integral part of the communal life in traditional Taiwan society. They constituted the main vehicle through which traditional art forms had been transmitted from generation to generation. In post-war Taiwan, however, amateur music clubs experienced serious decline. This was partly due to the Nationalist government’s cultural policy to promote Western and Chinese art forms and downgrade local Taiwanese culture, and partly due to the rapid westernization, modernization, industrialization, and urbanization that Taiwan society had undergone. In the 1970s, with the change of the political climate both internationally and domestically, the Nationalist government began to pay attention to local culture and to implement a series of projects to promote traditional arts. Among the art forms promoted, nanguan music stood out as one of the best supported due to its high social status, neutral political position, and academic value as recognized by foreign and domestic scholars. State intervention in nanguan started in 1980 and gradually increased its intensity until it reached its peak level in the second half of the 1990s. It has brought many resources to nanguan clubs, but it has also contributed to the deterioration of the nanguan community both in its musical quality and its members' integrity as amateur musicians. Based on my personal involvement in nanguan, I aim to document in this paper the state intervention in nanguan in the past two decades and to examine its impact on nanguan. I argue that the past two decades of state intervention in nanguan has fallen short of its goal to preserve and transmit nanguan mainly because its modes of intervention did not take into consideration the nature of nanguan as a pastime for self-cultivation among amateur musicians. I will also argue that such a failure can be further traced back to the lack of understanding about local traditional culture in Taiwan society as a result of the Nationalist government’s policy to uphold Western and national art forms while downgrading local ones.

Key words: cultural policy, state intervention, postwar Taiwan, nanguan, amateur music clubs. 96 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

I. Introduction

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1983, I went to Longshan Temple in Lukang , a historic town in Changhua County in mid-Taiwan and well known for its nanguan (literally “southern pipes”) tradition. I entered the wide-open space of the quiet, empty temple ground, and soon my attention was captured by the sound of nanguan pipa (four-stringed plucked lute). I followed it to another part of the temple ground. Then I saw two very old men, sitting in chairs, with their eyes half closed. One was playing a nanguan pipa and the other playing an erxian , the nanguan two-stringed fiddle. After the piece ended, the two remained silent. Soon, the pipa player started playing again, and the erxian player joined in naturally without asking which piece it was. The two continued on leisurely as if the music would never end, and life was just as simple and quiet as the music. Later I learned that the two old men were respectively in their 80s and 90s and belonged to Juying she , the nanguan music group that had been part of the temple for almost a century. This was one of my first encounters with nanguan music clubs, and the leisurely, quiet atmosphere of the whole scene made a lasting impression on me. Two years ago, I went to the temple again. The sound of nanguan was still there, but, instead of the quiet music played leisurely by the two old men, this time it was a group of young students singing nanguan together and led by two nanguan teachers. The singing was a bit chaotic and out of tune, but the teachers did not stop them, and the singing continued on. Without asking, I knew that this was another nanguan training course sponsored by the state. These two snapshots of nanguan activities in the same temple almost twenty year apart reflected more or less how nanguan in Taiwan has been transformed from a leisurely pastime of amateur music clubs to a cultural heritage promoted by the state through widespread training courses and other means of intervention. Such state intervention in nanguan started around 1980 and gradually increased in intensity until its recent peak level during the second Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 97 half of the 1990s. It has brought many resources to nanguan clubs, but it has also contributed to the deterioration of the nanguan community both in terms of its musical quality and its members’ pride and identity as amateur musicians. Based on my personal involvement in nanguan as a researcher since 1983 and in state-funded projects on nanguan since 1993,1 I aim to document in this paper the state intervention in nanguan in the past two decades and to examine its impact on nanguan. I will argue that the past two decades of state intervention in nanguan has failed to help preserve and transmit nanguan mainly because its modes of intervention did not take into consideration the nature of nanguan music as a self-cultivating pastime of amateur musicians. I will also argue that such a failure can be further traced back to the lack of understanding about local traditional culture on the part of cultural officials and scholars as a result of the Nationalist (also known as KMT) government’s policy to uphold Western and national art forms while downgrading local traditional arts.2 Even though scholars have made sporadic observations about the negative effects of state intervention on Taiwanese traditional arts,3 there has been little systematic research on the subject either

1. I was the producer of a state-commissioned nanguan recording project in 1993-94, the organizer of a nanguan conference as part of the first state-run nanguan art festival in 1994, and have been a reviewing committee member for the National Center for Traditional Arts since since around 1998. 2. In this article, “national art forms” refer to the various genres that were brought to Taiwan by mainland Chinese after 1945 and subsequently promoted by the Nationalist government as “national culture,” while “local traditional arts” refer to the traditional art forms of the aborigines (the original inhabitants of the island) and those of the southern Fujianese and Hakka people who emigrated to Taiwan in large numbers beginning in the 17th century. 3. So far Qiu Kunliang is probably the only scholar that has written most frequently about how state intervention has damaged traditional arts since the early 1980’s. Most of these writings, however, were short essays published in newspapers and popular magazines and republished in his collections of essays (see Qiu 1980, 1984, 1992, 1997a, 1997b, 1999, 2003). Lü Chuikuan in his recent review of the state of traditional music in Taiwan, a government-commissioned project, pointed out the negative influence brought by state intervention in nanguan and other traditional music (see Lü 2002:passim). Lin Gufang wrote 98 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 by researchers in cultural policy or those in traditional arts in Taiwan. Although Su Kuei-chi’s dissertation (2002) provides us with a comprehensive overview of the Nationalist government’s arts policy in postwar Taiwan, it mainly focused on how the policy influenced Peking Opera and gezaixi (native opera sung in Taiwanese) and does not deal with its effect on other Taiwanese operatic or musical genres. To fill this gap, I have relied on primary and secondary sources to sort out the state projects on traditional arts in general and on nanguan in particular, to examine their funding and operation, and to analyze the problems incurred by these projects. The primary sources consulted include governmental publi- cations, unpublished project reports, concert programs, writings by cultural officials, interviews with cultural officials and staff members, interviews with musicians, and my own involvement and observa- tion. In addition, I have consulted previous research on state cultural policy in Taiwan (such as Hsiau 1991, 2000; Li [1988] 1992; Su 1992; Winckler 1994; Su 1998; Su 2001; Su 2002) to put state intervention in nanguan in a larger historical and political context. In the following account, I will first give an overview of the nature of amateur music clubs and outline the history of the state cultural policy under the Nationalist government’s rule in postwar Taiwan. Then I will propose the reasons for nanguan’s favourable position in gaining state patronage. Next, I will divide the past two decades of state intervention in nanguan into four stages and discuss the modes of intervention in each of them. Finally, I will sum- about the problem of state subsidies and the role of scholars as cultural brokers (Lin [ 1991]1995). Chou Chiener discussed how cultural policy and scholarly intervention changed the identity of nanguan music in Taiwan (Chou in press). Wu Huohuang , a nanguan musician and an amateur researcher, observed how state-run nanguan activities lost the spontaneous interaction among nanguan musicians in their traditional activities (Wu 2000). Similar opinions were expressed by Fan Yangkun concerning state intervention in beiguan (literally “northern pipes”) music (Fan 2002:198). In addition, Belinda Chang analysed how cultural policy and political ideology influenced the development of gezaixi in Taiwan (Chang 1997). Nancy Guy examined how the Nationalist government upheld Peking Opera and disparaged local Taiwanese culture and arts (Guy 1999). Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 99 marize these four stages of state intervention, examine how it has affected the nanguan community, and discuss why it has fallen short of its goal.

II. Amateur Music Clubs in Taiwan4

Recent surveys on artistic resources and on amateur music clubs in various counties in Taiwan show that amateur music clubs had been widespread in villages as well as in urban communities all over the island. Such amateur music clubs, known as quguan (literally “song club”) or wenguan (“civil club”), existed in almost every village inhabited by the southern Fujianese and Hakka people who emigrated from southeastern coastal China to Taiwan beginning in the 17th century. In larger urban centers with bigger populations and livelier economies, the number of amateur music clubs tended to number in the dozens. While clubs in the villages usually consisted of members of the same village, clubs in urban centers could consist of members of a family, a locale, or a profession. These clubs, together with the local temples and the amateur martial arts clubs known as wuguan (“martial club”), functioned as community centers and formed an integral part of the life of the Han immigrants on the island. These amateur music clubs were voluntary associations usually organized and supported by local elites and participated in by vil- lagers and urban community members to study traditional arts and culture, to relax and cultivate oneself, to build human relationships, to perform at the rites of passages of fellow club members, and to contribute to temple festivals either as performers or as supporters. In the case of the amateur martial arts clubs, they also bore the responsibility of defending their villages and communities in times of

4. The following account on amateur music clubs is based on my own research on nanguan and on amateur music clubs in Changhua County (see Wang 2000) as well as on recent studies of amateur music clubs, such as Qiu 1980:30-45 and 1992:242-62. For a comprehensive survey of amateur music clubs in Changhua County, see also Hsu 1997 and Lin 1997. 100 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 danger. Traditionally, only men were allowed to participate in the amateur music clubs, while women were prohibited, since only professional female entertainers would perform in public. Thus, few females of good social standing were allowed to participate in amateur music clubs. An amateur music club normally consisted of three types of participants: the director, the members, and the financial supporters. The director was usually a local strongman and was in charge of the management of the club. The members included both the artists who actually practiced the arts and the helpers who contributed to the club activities through their time and labor. The financial supporters gave money to help sustain the club and its activities. All three of the above types of participants considered club participation as an honour and as a way to contribute to communal life. Club members took pride in their amateur status, because, unlike the professional actors and actresses who had low social status, they dis- dained performing for money, and only temple gods or fellow club members could enjoy the privilege of their services. Honorarium received from such services belonged to the club, not to the individual participants. Club participation was often time and money con- suming, and only people who could afford it could participate in these clubs. Consequently club membership symbolized good social standing and decent family background, not unlike the study of piano and violin in today’s Taiwan society. Furthermore, club participation was regarded as a way to pay tribute to the temple gods, for temple festivals could not do without the music and operas put on by these clubs through processions or through stationary performances to entertain the gods and the community. It was the duty of these clubs to perform for the festival of the temple that they were associated with (each club was traditionally associated with one particular temple). As a result, social elites voluntarily put in money and effort to organize and support amateur music clubs, and parents also voluntarily sent their children to study in these clubs. Hence, traditional performing arts had been transmitted from generation to generation, not as conscious effort to keep cultural heritage alive, nor Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 101 with governmental support, but simply as a familiar way of life. When the clubs performed during temple festivals, it was a time for them to display their artistry as well as their manpower and material resources (such as their banners and other properties) in order to win honor for the villages/communities and the temples they represented. Hence there had been an implicit element of competition among these clubs. Sometimes clubs even held open competitions, known as pinguan (literally “competing clubs”) or leitai (literally “fighting platform”), to challenge one another in their artistry. Such implicit and open competitions helped improve the artistry and skill of these amateur clubs. When the clubs wanted to improve their artistry or to learn a new kind of art form, they would invite teachers to offer a course, known as kaiguan (literally “opening a course”). A course usually lasted four months but, minus holidays, the actual teaching only lasted 100 days (Lü 2002: 163).5 Teachers were treated with good salary and high respect. Except in special cases, students normally had to pay tuition. Clubs taught by the same teacher usually considered one another as sibling clubs and had the obligation to help one another in times of need, such as during parades or competitions. The musical and operatic genres practiced by these amateur music clubs can be largely divided into two systems, namely nanguan and beiguan (literally “northern pipes”). The system of nanguan refers to the musical and operatic genres originating from the southern part of Fujian province and consists of nanguan music and its related genres, which include either the rustic derivations of nanguan music, such as taiping ge , tianzi mensheng , and chegu , or regional operas based on nanguan music, such as nanguan opera and gaojia opera . The system of beiguan consists of beiguan music and luantan opera , both of which are made up of musical and operatic elements originating from north of Fujian province (for more, see Wang 2002a; for a general introduction to nanguan, see Wang 2002b).

5. Some also say that a course lasts for three months. For example, see Hong 2001:109. 102 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

III. An Overview of Cultural Policy in Postwar Taiwan

The above depiction generally reflects the situation of amateur music clubs during the period when Taiwan was under Qing dynasty rule (i.e. 1683-1895) and during the Japanese colonial period (1895- 1945). After the Nationalist government took over Taiwan in 1945 after Japan lost the Pacific War in World War II, however, amateur music clubs gradually declined under the Nationalist government’s cultural policy to promote Western and national art forms and rele- gate local traditional ones. In the following section, I will briefly outline the various stages of cultural policy in Taiwan and its links with socio-political changes in Taiwan society. Since this is a vast topic, I will mainly focus on the aspects that are relevant to amateur music clubs and local traditional arts.6

1. Before 1945 Recent studies show that amateur music clubs already existed in Taiwan during the early half of the 18th century (see Li 1989:29-32, Qiu 1992:271). Although we don’t know much yet about the state’s stance toward amateur music clubs in Taiwan during the Qing dynasty, writings by Chinese officials and literati of the period docu- mented an abundance of musical and operatic performance activities during temple festivals and other festive occasions. After Taiwan became a colony of Japan in 1895, the Japanese colonial government took a tolerant attitude towards Taiwanese language, religion, and culture. Such a tolerant attitude, coupled with the stable and prosperous economy in Taiwan during this period, enabled the amateur music clubs to flourish (Qiu 1992). According to Qiu Kunliang’s estimation, there were about one thousand amateur music clubs throughout the island during this time, thus making the Japanese colonial period a heyday for amateur music clubs (ibid.:251).

6. For a comprehensive survey of the government cultural policy in postwar Taiwan, see Su 1998, 2001; Su 2002. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 103

After the Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937, however, the activities of the amateur music clubs were discouraged and even prohibited, as the Japanese colonial government began to exert tight control over Taiwanese culture as part of its kôminka or Japanization movement. After the Pacific War started in 1941, the Japanization movement intensified and continued until Japan lost the war in 1945 and returned Taiwan to China, which was then ruled by the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek . Although the amateur music clubs were greatly affected by the harsh wartime control and conditions, they did not completely lose their life force. Some clubs practiced in secrecy, while other clubs were even invited by the Japanese government to perform for radio programs in order to appease the Taiwanese people (see Wang 2002c). In some remote rural areas, clubs were also allowed to give out-door operatic performances (Chen 1999:122). Thus, as soon as the war ended in 1945, many amateur music clubs, together with the professional operatic troupes, quickly resumed their activities and flourished again. Hence the first few years after the war were often considered as the second golden period for traditional performing arts in Taiwan.

2. 1945 to 1970 The post-colonial heyday of the amateur music clubs quickly ended, however, under the authoritarian rule and the mainland- China-oriented cultural policy of the Nationalist government. As soon as the Nationalist government began its rule on Taiwan in 1945, a series of policies were implemented to resinicize the Taiwanese and to suppress the local culture. Among the most damaging of these policies was the promotion of Mandarin as guoyu (“national language”) and the suppression of local dialects, which began in earnest in 1946, and the economization of temple festivals beginning in 1947. Both of these policies lasted for several decades and had long-lasting negative effects on amateur music clubs. The language policy alienated the youngwe generation from their mother tongue and their native culture. Consequently, many lost their motivation to participate in amateur music clubs. The “downsizing” of temple festi- 104 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 vals further deprived the amateur music clubs of one of the most important functions of their existence. After the Nationalist government retreated from Chinese mainland to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by the Chinese Communist Party, the island became the military and economic base for the state’s mission to recover China. Meanwhile, it also became the “temporary” home for the two million mainlanders who followed the Nationalist government in exile. As a result, policies were implemented to propagate anti-Communist ideology and to enforce the identification with mainland China as the motherland for not only the mainlanders but also the Taiwanese. This was done through school education and through appropriating cultural and art forms as the state’s propaganda tools.7 The indoctrination of mainland China as the lost motherland further estranged the younger generation from the native culture of the island. After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966, the Nationalist Government launched the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement in 1967 to reinforce Chinese ethics and to promote Chinese gentry culture as national culture in order to prove itself as the true guardian of Chinese culture and the legitimate ruling regime of China. The art forms promoted included guoju “national opera” (namely “Peking opera”), guoyue “national music” (westernized Chinese instrumental music), and guohua “national painting” (brush painting). These art forms received full governmental support and were widely promoted in school and society through various campaigns (see Guy 1999 and Su 2002 for details about the promotion of Peking opera). In contrast, local Taiwanese art forms were largely ignored and marginalized. While forging “national” culture on the one hand, the quest for modernization also led the Nationalist government to promote Western classical music on the other hand through the founding of a

7. These cultural and art forms included combat literature, patriotic songs, and local operatic genres. For a discussion on literature, see Hsiau 2000. For the state use of budaixi (glove puppet theatre) as a propaganda tool by the state, see Chen Longting 1998. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 105 state symphony orchestra (see Qiu 2002) and through implementing a music education that focused mainly on Western art music (see Chen Yuxiu 1998). As a result, “music” without any qualifier became synonymous with Western art music for most people in Taiwan (for similar situation in Japan and Korea, see Tokumaru 1980; Killick 2002:804). In addition to Western art music, American popular culture and Western modernist avant-garde expressions also exerted great influence on the cultural scene in Taiwan. Due to the Nationalist government’s reliance on America as its most important foreign ally, American popular culture was extensively imported into Taiwan and became a model for the general public to emulate. Meanwhile, intellectuals and artists in Taiwan were fed up with the state’s stifling ide- ological control and looked to Western modernism for both escape and inspiration. All these western art forms made the musical and operatic genres practiced by amateur music clubs look all the more outdated. Mass media, industrialization, and urbanization brought further challenges to amateur music clubs. With mass media, people no longer spent their leisure time in amateur music clubs or participated in communal activities. Moreover, industrialization and urbanization brought many youngsters to urban centers for work or study, leaving the villages inhabited mostly by the elderly, women, and small children. Thus, amateur music clubs lacked the young men needed to continue their activities. All the above factors contributed to the decline of the amateur music clubs during this period, many of whose activities either diminished or completely stopped.

3. Since 1970 The 1970s marked an important turning point for Taiwan. Setbacks in the Republic of China’s foreign relations in the 1970s8

8. For example, Taiwan was forced out of the United Nations in 1971. In 1972, American President Nixon visited China and the USA-Taiwan relationship deteriorated. In the same year, Taiwan’s official diplomatic relationship with Japan was 106 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 and Chiang Kai-shek’s death in 1975 brought instability to the Nationalist government and forced it to reform itself and to take a more tolerant attitude toward the Taiwanese people and culture. Intellectuals also began to reflect on the Western modernism’s dominance in Taiwan and to re-examine the issue of Taiwan’s political and cultural identity. A series of movements were undertaken to advocate the “return to the native” (“huigui xiangtu” ) in various cultural domains (for an over-all examination, see Hsiau 1991:111-16; for literature, see Chang 1999:412-16; for music, see Zhang 1994). In 1977, the Nationalist government’s new leader, Chiang Ching- kuo , the son and successor of Chiang Kai-shek, announced the policy of “cultural development” (wenhua jianshe ) as part of his “Twelve Development Projects” (Shi’er xiang jianshe ), with the specific goal to construct local cultural centers in every city and county in Taiwan. The task to implement this plan was taken up by the Ministry of Education (hereafter the MOE). Twenty-two local cultural centers were eventually construct- ed, with nineteen of them completed between 1981 and 1986 and three more in the 1990s (for details, see Lü 2002:23-25). Chiang’s policy of cultural development also marked the beginning of the state intervention in traditional arts. In 1979, the Executive Yuan announced a “Plan to Reinforce Cultural and Recreational Activities” (Jiaqiang wenhua yule fang’an ), and the MOE also announced the “Plan to Promote Artistic Education” (Tuixing wenyi jiaoyu huodong fang’an ). Both plans included the goal to preserve and promote traditional arts (for details, see Zhang 1995). In 1981, the above-mentioned plan announced by the Executive Yuan led to the establishment of the Council for Cultural Planning and Development (whose name in English was later changed to the Council for Cultural Affairs, hereafter CCA) in 1981. The same plan also led to the passing of the Cultural Property Law (Wenhua zichan terminated. In 1979, Taiwan’s official diplomatic relationship with USA was also terminated. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 107 baocun fa ) in 1982, which became the legal basis for the ensuing state intervention in cultural property (for details of this law, see Su 2002:217-18). Modelled after the Korean and Japanese systems, the Law included the protection of both tangible and intangible cultural property, with traditional performing arts belonging to the latter category. This Law entrusted the MOE to be in charge of the protection of traditional performing arts. The Law also stipulated the protection of traditional artists and of honoring the particularly outstanding ones as National Artists (Guojia yishi ) (Chen [1981]1984:77). To carry out its task to preserve traditional arts, the MOE first commissioned two scholars to carry out two multi-year surveys of traditional artists in Taiwan, including those genres brought from mainland China to Taiwan after 1945 and those of the local traditional arts (see Yin 1982:1).9 These surveys lasted from 1980 to 1990, with initial results completed in 1983 and 1984 (see Yin 1983; Lin 1984a and 1984b). Based on the results of these surveys and the rec- ommendations of the scholars, the MOE set up the Traditional Arts Heritage Award (Minzu yishu xinchuan jiang , hereafter Heritage Award) in 1985, which it continued to award annually until 1994.10 In 1989, the first round of the selection of the Important Traditional Artists (Zhongyao minzu yishi ) was held. From 1991 to 1994, the MOE implemented the “Zhongyao minzu yishi chuanyi jihua” (Important Traditional Artists Transmission Projects).11

9. The two scholars commissioned are Lin Enxian , Professor of Sociology and Director of the Graduate Institute of Frontier Administration at National Chengchi University (the Institute was changed to the Graduate Institute of Ethnology in 1990 and was enlarged into the Department of Ethnology in 1993), and Yin Jianzhong, Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at National Taiwan University . For details on these two surveys, see He 1995:8. 10. For details of the setting up of the award and the selection process, see Zhou 1986 and Zheng 1986. 11. For a review of this project, see MOE 1995. 108 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

In parallel to the MOE, CCA also made efforts to promote traditional arts. These efforts included sponsoring folk arts festivals and concerts, planning several folk arts recreational parks (minsu jiyi yuan ) in different parts of Taiwan (see Su 1998:19; Zeng 1987; Zhang 1995: 82-83), and setting up a “planning team” (choubei xiaozu ) for the Center for Musical Heritage (Minzu yinyue zhongxin ) within the Council in 1990.12 Moreover, CCA also guided local cultural centers to start planning specialty museums to feature local cultural characteristics (see Su 1998:17). Both the efforts of the MOE and CCA on traditional arts outlined above, however, could not completely shed the Nationalist ideology of taking Taiwanese culture as part of Chinese culture and of “regarding Chinese and modern refined arts as higher in level than local traditional arts” (Su 2001: 64).13 It was not until the lifting of martial law in 1987 that “Taiwanese consciousness” (Taiwan yishi ) came into a full bloom in Taiwan society. As a response, the state’s cultural policy also began to put increasing emphasis on local Taiwanese culture. In 1991, the MOE announced the policy to promote traditional arts in elementary and junior high schools and allocated special funding for schools to offer training courses on traditional arts as extra-curricular activities.14 In 1994, the MOE further required junior high schools to include native culture in their curriculum design (Zhang 1999: 61). Similarly, CCA’s cultural policy also responded to the rise of

12. The Preparatory Office of the Center for Musical Heritage was eventually founded in 1999. 13. For example, the surveys of traditional artists commissioned by the MOE put much emphasis on regional genres brought by mainlanders to Taiwan; the recipients of the Heritage Award also included a substantial number of the artists of these mainland genres. Similarly, mainland genres also occupied a considerable portion of the folk arts recreational park planned by Zeng Yongyi under the commission of CCA (see Zeng 1987). Also see Su 2001:64. 14. For details on the regulations of this policy, see “Guomin zhongxiaoxue tuizhan yishu jiaoyu shishi yaodian” (Implementation of the Promotion of Traditional Arts Education in Elementary and Junior High School) at http://www.eje.ntnu.edu.tw/dta/onell/2001117151/3-13.htm. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 109

Taiwanese consciousness by turning toward localization and decen- tralization. To implement this policy, CCA reformulated its annual “Culture and Arts Festival” (Wenyi ji ) into the first “Nation- wide Culture and Art Festival” (Quanguo wenyi ji ) in 1994, which entrusted each local cultural center to design its own festival featuring local cultural characteristics. It is through this festival that local cultural centers became mobilized to make use of the local cultural resources and to design programs relevant to the life of their local people (for details, see Su 1998). In 1995, after the MOE completed the above-mentioned “Impor- tant Traditional Artists Transmission Project,” CCA replaced the MOE to become the state-agency in charge of the task to preserve and promote traditional arts. In the same year, CCA launched the first full-fledged “Traditional Arts Preservation Project” (Minjian yishu baocun jihua ).15 In 1996 CCA founded the Preparatory Office of the National Center for Traditional Arts as one of its adjunct organizations to take charge of all matters related to traditional arts. In 2000, after Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidential election and terminated the fifty years of the Nationalist government’s rule on Taiwan, state cultural policy officially entered a new era with an obvious focus on local Taiwanese culture. It is with this general background in mind that I now turn to state intervention in nanguan.

IV. Nanguan’s Priviledged Position

Among the local art forms preserved and promoted by the government since 1980, nanguan arguably stands out as one of the most supported.16 I propose that it is nanguan’s high social status,

15. This project was deemed by many as the largest in scale compared with the preceding state projects on traditional arts. See, for example, Lin 1998:208. 16. For example, according to Xue Yinshu, a veteran CCA official, any proposals related to nanguan tend to get CCA’s funding without much difficulty (Xue 2003). 110 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 its neutral political position, and the recognition of nanguan’s historical value by domestic and foreign scholars, that made it a “sacred cow” for governmental support.

1. High Social Status Nanguan music clubs share most of the features of amateur music clubs described above. However, nanguan music clubs differ from the other amateur music clubs in the high social status it enjoyed. Such a high social status has much to do with nanguan music’s archaic features, refined artistry, elegant and introspective style, and sophisticated music theory and rules for performance, all of which require a lifetime to master. Hence nanguan musicians are often regarded as cultivated people who have enough time and money to indulge themselves in the refined arts of nanguan. Another reason that contributed to the high social status of nanguan was its legendary association with the imperial courts. According to a popular legend, five nanguan musicians from southern Fujian province were invited to perform for Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722) on his 60th birthday, and the Emperor bestowed these nanguan musicians with the honorific title “yuqian qingke” (literally “elegant guests before the emperor”) as well as the yellow parasol and the lantern. Although this legend cannot be veri- fied with historical evidence, it has been widely circulated among nanguan musicians up to this day and constitutes an important factor for the pride of nanguan musicians (for more details on this legend, see Chou in press). Interestingly, this legend was also widely known among Japanese officials during the Japanese colonial period. This made nanguan a preferred art form to present to the Japanese imperial family during their visits to Taiwan as well as to the Japanese gov- erner-generals and other officials stationed in Taiwan. The most famous incident was the visit of Shôwa Tennô (Shôwa emperor) to Taiwan in 1923 when he was still Prince Hirohito (see below). Beside royal patronage, nanguan’s high social status can also be evidenced by the privilege that nanguan music clubs enjoyed Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 111 during temple festivals. It has been reported that some temple gods in Tainan County allegedly appeared in the dream of the luzhu (the person in charge of the temple festival) to request the honor of the inclusion of nanguan music in the temple festival procession, and this was how several nanguan music clubs were started (You 1997). Nanguan’s high social status is also much related to the fact that they were usually supported and participated in by gentry. Stories abound about how people of low social status, such as professional entertainers or hairdressers, were prohibited from joining nanguan music clubs, and how nanguan musicians who taught female entertainers or the professional operatic troupes were driven out of the nanguan clubs they originally belonged to.

2. Neutral Political Position Another factor that accounts for nanguan’s favorable position in governmental funding can be attributed to its neutral position in the sense that nanguan is neither completely “Taiwanese” nor “Chinese”. Nanguan is one of the few genres that came from China and are still practiced in both regions. Moreover, nanguan’s lyrics are sung in Quanzhou dialect, which is quite different from the Taiwanese dialect and is still spoken now in the city of Quanzhou in mainland China. In addition, prior to 1949, the nanguan music circle in Taiwan had always maintained continuous contact with the nanguan music circle in southern Fujian. Many nanguan music clubs in Taiwan were taught by nanguan musicians that came from Quanzhou or Amoy (known as Xiamen in China). Therefore, they inherited the repertoire and the performance style of the nanguan music in southern Fujian. Furthermore, because of the close connection between Taipei and Amoy during the Japanese colonial period, there were even formal ties that existed between some nanguan music clubs in these two cities; for example, Jixian tang and Qinghua ge of Taipei were the sibling clubs of Ji’an tang and Jinhua ge in Amoy respectively. As mentioned before, sibling clubs had the obligation to assist one another when occasions of need arised. Thus, when Jixian tang was invited to per- 112 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 form for Shôwa Tennô in 1923, Ji’an tang sent several leading musicians from Amoy to Taiwan to help them out. This was a good example of the close ties among the sibling clubs between Amoy and Taipei.17 Nanguan was also one of the few musical genres that the mainlanders who followed the Nationalist government to Taiwan in the 1940s could share with local Taiwanese musicians. A good example can be found in the case of Taipei Minnan yuefu , which was formed mainly by Fujianese who migrated to Taiwan after 1945 but was also participated in by local Taiwanese musicians (for more, see Wang 1997; Chou in press). Despite its close links with mainland China, however, nanguan is also typically Taiwanese because it is the oldest genre that was widely popular in Taiwan. One could even argue that nanguan in Taiwan has already developed its own unique style and tradition which distinguish it from the nanguan in mainland China. This is due in part to the fact that Taiwan has more or less kept the style transmitted to Taiwan before 1949, while the nanguan in mainland China had undergone drastic changes under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party’s proletarian policy toward the arts.18

3.Recognition by Domestic and Foreign Scholars Among the various musical and operatic genres in Taiwan, nanguan was one of the first to receive the attention of foreign scholars for its historical value. As early as 1922, Tanabe Hisao , the first Japanese musicologist to do fieldwork on music in Taiwan, already proclaimed nanguan’s close resemblance to Japanese court music (Society for Research in Asiatic Music 1968: 184). Beginning in 1950s, several American and British scholars collected nanguan materials and expressed high respect for nanguan’s artistic and his-

17. For more on the links between the nanguan clubs in Taiwan and southern Fujian, see Wang 1995. 18. For more on the art policy in China, see Yang Mu’s article in this volume; for nanguan’s changes under the influence of the cultural policy in China, see Wang 1995. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 113 torical value (see Huang 1981:130-31). For example, after listening to the recordings of nanguan music, American composer Alan Hovhaness wrote an article that extoled nanguan to be the remnant of the music of the Tang dynasty and praised its compositional tech- niques as even more modern than the 20th-century Western contemporary music (Yu 1981:83). In 1969, American ethnomusicologist Fred Lieberman recorded nanguan music performed by Taipei Minnan yuefu and later released it as part of An Anthology of the World’s Music issued by a foreign label (Lieberman 1971). This was the first record of Taiwan’s nanguan music issued by a foreign record company. Domestic scholars also began to patronize nanguan as early as the 1950’s. For example, nanguan musicians were invited to perform and teach at National Taiwan Normal University and Soochow University in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1960s and 1970s, Liang Tsai-ping , the then president of the Society for Chinese Music (Zhonghua guoyue hui ),19 organized several concert opportunities for nanguan clubs, made arrangement for Lieberman’s recording, and introduced nanguan music to several other foreign scholars (for more, see Liang 1983; Huang 1981:131; TCB 2002a:104-05). Meanwhile, several other domestic scholars wrote about the historical value of nanguan (see Schipper and Hsu 1983:51; Huang 1981:131-32). Starting in the mid-1970s, with the rise of the “return to the native” movement among the intellectuals, scholars and social elites began to carry out activities to preserve and promote folk arts. With its unique social and political position, nanguan naturally became one of the first objects of such salvaging efforts. These efforts included fieldwork investigation on nanguan clubs, publication of indices of nanguan manuscripts, presentation of nanguan in folk arts concerts and festivals held domestically, and presentation of nanguan in

19. Liang Tsai-ping had been the president of the society from 1954 to 1979. The society later changed its Chinese name to Zhonghua minguo guoyue xuehui (Society for Chinese Music in R.O.C.) in 1982. For more, see society’s website at http://www.scm.org.tw/htm/introduce.htm. 114 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 international conferences and concert tours held abroad. Most of the initiatives and funding of these activities came from scholars and social elites. Particularly active was composer and ethnomusicologist Hsu Tsang-houei , who played a vital role in pioneering scholarly intervention in nanguan. From 1976 to 1982, he made a series of promotional and research activities on nanguan.20 Most importantly, Hsu presented nanguan concerts by Tainan Nansheng she in Korea and Japan, which marked nanguan’s first live performance in foreign countries outside of Southeast Asia, where many nanguan groups existed. In the same year, Hsu led a research team to carry out the first in-depth documentation of the history of nanguan clubs and musicians in Lukang. In 1981, Hsu organized the first conference on nanguan, which established nanguan’s historical value in Taiwan. The nanguan groups patronized by Hsu and other scholars during this period included Taipei Minnan Yuefu, Tainan Nansheng She, and the two veteran nanguan groups in Lukang, namely Lukang Yazheng zhai and Lukang Juying she (mentioned above). Beside the patronage by domestic scholars, Tainan Nansheng she’s concert tour in Europe in 1982 further established nanguan’s academic value internationally. Arranged by Kristofer Schipper, a

20. Hsu presented Taipei Minnan yuefu in the Asian Composers’ League held in Taipei in 1976, invited Lukang Juying she to perform in the first Folk Artists Concert (Minjian yueren yinyue hui ) he organized in 1977, and carried out fieldwork on nanguan clubs in Lukang in 1978. After Hsu founded Chinese Folk Arts Foundation in 1979, he organized a research team to carry out a project to document the history of nanguan clubs in Lukang, investigat- ed and made sound recordings of Tainan Nansheng she, and took Tainan Nansheng she to perform in the Asian Composers’ League held in Korea, followed by a concert tour in Japan. In 1981, Hsu organized the first conference on nanguan. In April 1982, Hsu organized a lecture-concert tour of nanguan on the island as the 21st Folk Artists Concert, in which Kimlan langjun she ( ) of the Philippines performed with nanguan groups in Hsinchu , Lukang, Tainan, Kaohsiung , and Taipei. For details, see TCB 2002a and Chinese Folk Arts Foundation 1989:46-52. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 115 sinologist and Taoist specialist then based in France, Tainan Nansheng she toured Europe for twenty-five days, giving concerts in five countries, including an all-night concert (from 10 p.m., Oct. 22, to 6 a.m., Oct. 23) at Radio France with simultaneous broadcast all over Europe, as well as a five-hour seminar on Oct. 25. The three- week tour was so unexpectedly well-received that, according to Schipper, “nanguan conquered the hearts of the European music lovers” (Schipper and Hsu 1983:53). The impact of the 1982 tour cannot be overestimated. Its success made nanguan an overnight star on Taiwan.21 The success of the 1982 tour, coinciding with the government’s new policy to promote local culture, marked the beginning of the government’s involvement in nanguan activities for the past two decade.

V. State Intervention in Nanguan

In the following section, I will examine the past two decades of state intervention within four stages: 1980-1984, 1985-1989, 1990- 1994, and 1995-2003. Each stage was marked by the beginning of new modes of state intervention in nanguan and traditional arts. Some activities held within one period might have extended to the next. Hence, I make the following periodization mainly to delineate general trends of development, and it should not be taken as clear- cut demarcation.

1.1980-1984 During this first stage, although promotion of traditional arts relied mostly on the initiatives of scholars and social elites, state agencies began to take more active steps to preserve traditional arts

21. From Dec. 15 to 28, 1982, the China Broadcasting Corporation (a governmental radio station) produced a series of programs introducing nanguan. Meanwhile, newspapers reported the success of the tour and the significance of nanguan. On Dec. 28, Tainan Nansheng she performed as part of a public concert in Taipei. Thus, “from October to December, from Europe to Taiwan, nanguan enjoyed the greatest attention it has ever received” (Lü 1986:119). 116 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 through documentation and through presentation in folk arts festivals.

1) Surveys of Traditional Arts Commissioned by the Ministry of Education The above-mentioned two surveys commissioned by the MOE contained some documentation about the state of nanguan music in several counties in Taiwan and the names and contact means of dozens of nanguan musicians, as well as some life histories of a few nanguan musicians.22 In 1984, Taiwan Provincial Government also commissioned National Taiwan Academy of the Arts to conduct a survey on local traditional arts, and the result contained some short introductions to several nanguan musicians (National Taiwan Academy of the Arts 1984:26-35). Although these surveys were superficial and contained obvious errors, they were the first island-wide surveys on nanguan and other traditional arts and provided information which would have other- wise been lost. While these surveys have mostly been neglected by scholars, they deserved much more attention.

2) Folk Theatre Festival Sponsored by the Council for Cultural Affairs In parallel to MOE’s efforts, CCA sponsored a large-scale folk arts festival entitled “Folk Theatre” (Minjian juchang ) as part of its annual “Culture and Arts Festival” ( Wenyi ji ). This “Folk Theatre” festival took place from 1982 to 1986, and nanguan was presented every year except for 1983.23 A review of the nanguan groups presented in this festival shows that even though nanguan was featured almost every year,

22. See Yin 1982:passim; Yin 1983:29, 195-96; Lin 1984a: passim; Yin 1988:127- 42; Yin 1989:633-37. 23. The nanguan clubs presented included: Minnan yuefu (Taipei), Yazheng zhai (Lukang), and Nansheng she (Tainan) in 1982; Nansheng she (Tainan) in 1984; Minnan yuefu (Taipei) in 1985; Huasheng she (Taipei) and Hele she (Kaohsiung) in 1986. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 117 the nanguan clubs presented were limited to only five clubs, with the first few years concentrated on the nanguan clubs already promoted and researched by Hsu Tsang-houei in the late 1970s (see above). It was only in 1986 that two additional nanguan clubs were presented. This is not surprising since these festivals were organized by scholars closely associated with Hsu Tsang-houei and the Chinese Folk Arts Foundation that he founded in 1979. Hence they foreshadowed the tendency for the state resources to be concentrated on the few nanguan clubs patronized by these scholars. Beside state-level agencies, city and county level governments also held similar documentation and promotional activities, although on a smaller scale.24

2.1985-1989 After 1985, documentation and promotional activities of nanguan continued. Meanwhile, new forms of intervention which awarded both national recognition and financial gains began to emerge during this period. These included the holding of the Heritage Award, the appointment of the Important Traditional Artists, and the revitalization of old nanguan clubs, and the patronage for new nanguan groups.

1) Heritage Award As mentioned above, the Heritage Award set up by the MOE was held from 1985 to 1994. In its first few years, the awardees only received the honor without a monetary prize; in the latter years, each awardee was given an honorarium of NT$50,000 (Li 1997:61; Yin 1991:6).25

24. For example, nanguan was presented in the music festival held in Taipei in 1980 (TCB 2002a:106). In 1984, Changhua County Government commissioned Hsu Tsang-houei to carry out a one-year survey of folk arts in the county, including its nanguan clubs (Chinese Folk Arts Foundation 1999:30-35). 25. The exchange rate between US and New Taiwan dollars from 1990 to 1994 averaged around US$1=NT$26 (see Guo 2002). 118 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

Among the 132 individuals and 42 groups who received the award, six nanguan groups and six nanguan musicians were awarded in the category of traditional music and narrative singing, and two nanguan opera performers were awarded in the category of traditional opera.26 From the nanguan groups and musicians and opera performers awarded, we can make the following observations: i. Among the six nanguan musicians and two nanguan opera performers awarded, only three of them were born in Taiwan. This was in stark contrast to the other awardees of the other local genres, who were all born in Taiwan. This reflects the ambiguous identity of nanguan as neither completely Taiwanese nor completely mainland Chinese, as mentioned above. ii. All of the six nanguan musicians awarded were active in Taipei (except for Lao Hong-gio , who lived in the Philippines). Thus we see a concentration of state resources

26. The nanguan musicians and music clubs that received the Heritage Award include the following: 1985: Nansheng she (nanguan club in Tainan, founded around 1910); 1986: Yazheng zhai, Juying she (nanguan clubs in Lukang, with the former founded around mid-18th century and the latter in the late 19th century); 1987: Yu Chengyao (nanguan musician, 1898-1993, who was born in southern Fujian and moved to Taipei after 1945), Li Xiangshi (nanguan opera performer, 1911-2003, who was born in southern Fujian and had been living in the Philippines until he moved to Taiwan in the 1980s); 1988: Huasheng nanyue she (nanguan group in Taipei, founded in 1985 by Wu Kunren ), Wu Suxia (nanguan opera performer and veteran nanguan musician, born in 1940s, active in Taichung area in mid-Taiwan); 1989: Tsai Tianmu (nanguan musician, 1913- , born in Taiwan, active in Taipei area); 1990 : Wu Kunren (nanguan musician, 1917- , born in Taiwan, founder of Huasheng Nanyue she, active in Taipei area); 1990: Cheng Shujian (nanguan musician, 1918- , born in southern Fujian and moved to Taiwan after 1945, active in Taipei area); 1991: Lao Hong-gio (nanguan musician, 1907-2000, who was born in southern Fujian and lived in the Philippines); 1992: Hantang yuefu (nanguan group in Taipei, founded in 1983 by Chen Mei’e ); 1993: Minnan yuefu (nanguan club in Taipei, founded in 1961, mainly consisting of musicians who moved to Taiwan after 1945); 1994: You Qifen (nanguan musician, 1924- 1999, born in southern Fujian and moved to Taiwan after 1945). Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 119

in the Taipei, where the state government is located. iii. Among the six nanguan groups awarded, four of them were presented or researched by Hsu Tsang-houei in the late 1970s, as mentioned above.27 Thus we see an example of how scholarly patronage had important influence on the dis- tribution of state resources on nanguan groups. iv. The other two groups, Huasheng she and Hantang yuefu , were all very young groups, with the former founded in 1986 and the latter in 1983. In addition, Huasheng she and its founder Wu Kunren were both awarded (with the group awarded in 1988 and Wu himself in 1990). This indicates the rising status of these two new groups (see below). Since the MOE stipulated that the candidates for the Heritage Award must be nominated by only certain qualified organizations, this award not only created a sense of competition among musicians and groups but also enhanced the reliance of musicians on scholars or other cultural bureaucrats as their mediators and patrons.28 Qiu Kunliang also observed how this award became a mere for- mality (Qiu 1997a:238-41). The Heritage Award was finally terminated after 1994 and was replaced by a similar award held by a private foundation.29

27. Again, this refers to Yazheng zhai and Juying she in Lukang, Nansheng she in Tainan, and Minnan yuefu in Taipei. 28. I myself was asked by a nanguan musician to recommend him in this award. Li Xiu’e (1997:61) also reported that it was Hsu Tsang-houei who helped Yazheng zhai get the Heritage Award, but this prompted Juying she (which has been Yazheng zhai’s rivalry) to find ways to get the award as well; in the end both groups were awarded in the same year. 29. This is the Global Chinese Culture and Arts Award organized by the Republic of China Jaycees Club . This award was originally started in 1993 and was entitled Ten Outstanding Youth Heritage Award . In 1995, it was renamed The Third Outstanding Chinese Culture and Arts Award . In 1996, it was expanded to accept candidates from the Chinese diaspora (including mainland China) and was renamed The Fourth Global Chinese Culture and Arts Award . This award has continued up to the time of this 120 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

Even though the Heritage Award was terminated in 1995, it continued to function as an important credit for its recipients to get social recognition as well as governmental patronage. Meanwhile, governmental funding on artists often used this award to determine the grading of artists in terms of their hourly payment and future prospects for gaining governmental funding.30

2) Important Traditional Artists In 1989, the MOE held its first election of the Important Tradtional Artists. This represented the highest honor for traditional artists and included monthly salaries for the awardees as well as training projects initiated and fully funded by the Ministry. Only six artists were elected, including Li Xiangshi the veteran nanguan opera teacher who had received the Heritage Award in 1987. No nanguan musicians were awarded, however. From 1991 to 1994, the MOE implemented the transmission projects for these Important Tradtional Artists, but only limited results were achieved due to the difficulty in procuring serious students and to the old age of the artists (see MOE 1995 for a review of the award and the projects). The election of Important Tradtional Artists was held again in 1997, but this time the artists only received a plaque as a token of honor. Again, no nanguan musicians were elected.

writing. 128 people had received this award up to the year 2002. Starting in 1996, this award has received funding from various organizations, including governmental agencies such as MOE and CCA. For details, see http://www.abridge.com.tw/ myway/my-5g-593.htm. Two nanguan musicians have received this award, including Chen Mei’e in 1997 and Wu Suxia in 1999 (TCB 2002a:110-11). Both of them also received the Heritage Award offered by the MOE (see above). 30. It should be added that when the Taiwan Provincial Government established its Cultural Division in 1998, it also set up an award for traditional artists entitled the Folk Arts Lifetime Achievement Award . Two veteran nanguan musicians, Zhang Hongming and Zhang Zaiyin , received this award (TCB 2002a: 110). This award, however, was quickly terminated due to the abolishment of the Taiwan Provincial Government in 1999. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 121

3) Revitalizing Veteran Nanguan Clubs In 1985, the CCA commissioned the Chinese Folk Arts Foundation to carry out the first state-funded project to help revitalize Lukang Yazheng zhai, the oldest remaining nanguan club in Taiwan. The actual steps taken included making recordings, compil- ing the club’s manuscripts, reviving the clubs’ regular rehearsals, and recruiting new students for the club. Despite the original long-term plan, however, this project only lasted for one year, from January to December, 1985 (for details, see Chinese Folk Arts Foundation 1989:18; 1999:44-45; Lin 1986).

4) Patronizing new groups: Hantang yuefu and Huasheng she In contrast to this short-lived project to revitalize old nanguan clubs, two newly founded nanguan groups, namely Hantang yuefu (here after HTYF) and Huasheng she, were gaining increasing state patronage during this period. Both groups started out as one-man companies, with the former founded by a young, ambitious female musician, Chen Mei’e (1954- )31 in 1983, and the latter by an old veteran nanguan musician, Wu Kunren (1917- ),32 in 1986. Located in Taipei, both groups succeeded in building connections with scholars and governmental officials and subsequently rose to stardom in a short time. HTYF specialized in presenting nicely packaged nanguan concerts and in making concert tours abroad.33

31. Chen began to study nanguan at Tainan Nansheng she in the 1970s and participated in the club’s 1982 concert tour in Europe. After coming back from Europe, Chen left Tainan Nansheng she and founded her own group in Taipei at the age of 29. Chen’s action caused much controversy among nanguan practition- ers, especially since it was unprecedented for a nanguan club to be founded by a female musician. 32. Wu began to study nanguan at the age of fourteen (1931), started to teach in nanguan clubs when he was seventeen (1934), and had been performing and teaching nanguan in different parts of Taiwan until the early 1980s (Lin 2002). 33. HTYF’s first foreign concert tour took place in the United States in 1986. Under the arrangement of Wang Ch’iu-kui (a professor), the group performed in Chinoperl conference in Chicago and in leading universities, including Harvard University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Pennsylvia, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Washington, University of California at Los 122 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

HTYF’s funding mainly came from CCA, most likely because HTYF’s nicely packaged nanguan concerts fit well with CCA’s goal to promote “high arts” (jingzhi yishu ).34 Wu Kunren pioneered in getting funding from the MOE to offer nanguan training courses in various venues.35 Patronized first by Hsu Tsang-houei and later also by Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra (where Wu taught nanguan from 1988 to 1990), Wu also gained access to many other state resources.36 Wu’s privileged position in state-sponsored projects culminated in 1991 when he was recommended by Hsu Tsang-houei to take charge of organizing the nanguan performance

Angeles, and University of Hawaii (TCB 2002c: 188-89). Subsequently the group has been making annual concert tours in different parts of the world. It also performed frequently in Taiwan under the sponsorship of various cultural institutions. For a detailed list of their concerts held domestically and internationally from 1983 to 2000, see TCB 2002c: 188-208. For an account of the group’s intial concert tours, see Wang Ch’iu-kui’s recollection (2002). I’m grateful to Wang Ch’iu-kui for providing me with this unpublished manuscript of his. 34. This is based on the observations made by Xue Yinshu, a veteran CCA official (Xue 2003). 35. Starting in 1983, Wu was invited by Hsu Tsang-houei to offer nanguan courses to graduate students at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). In 1985, the MOE commissioned NTNU to offer summer courses on traditional arts for school teachers, and Wu was invited by Hsu to teach. In 1987, Wu applied for funding from the MOE to hold training courses in his group and was granted NT$1,967,000 for the first year. Although the first-year training course turned out to be a total failure, with only one student left at the end of the course, Wu managed to get continual subsidy from the state to hold training courses in his group up to this time of writing, albeit with decreasing amount of subsidy each year. Beside offering state-funded training courses in his own group, Wu also began to teach nanguan in state-run institutions, including the Social Education Center Yanping Division from 1987 to the 1990s, and the Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra from 1988 to 1990. For details, see Lin 2002. 36. For example, Wu’s group, Huasheng she, began to be presented in TMCO’s Taipei Traditional Arts Festival in 1988. Later TMCO further provided Wu with resources to host a Southeast Asia Nanguan Gala Concert (entitled “Nantian guanyue shengge Dongnanya nanguan huiyan” ) as part of its TTA Festival in 1990, during which four nanguan groups from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore were invited to Taiwan to perform with Huasheng she and Lukang Yazheng zhai. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 123 to be presented at the Second Presidential Hall Concert . It is interesting to note that both Chen Mei’e and Wu Kunren participated in Tainan Nansheng she’s concert tour in Europe in 1982. It was after this concert tour that Chen left Tainan Nansheng she to start her own group in Taipei in order to realize her aim to revitalize nanguan and to prove the historical value of nanguan. It was also after this concert tour that Wu started his connection with Hsu Tsang-houei and the scholarly world, which eventually led to his active involvement in the cultural politics of nanguan. Thus we see the important role of Tainan Nansheng she’s concert tour in Europe in promulgating scholarly and governmental intervention in nanguan and in fostering nanguan musicians’ self-consciousness about the value of nanguan as a cultural heritage. It also shows again the important role played by scholars as mediators between musicians and the state during this period.

3.1990-1994 In the first half of 1990s, with the rise of “Taiwan consciousness”, state intervention in nanguan also entered a new phase. The modes of intervention during this period included state-funded training courses, audio-visual documentation of nanguan, and the holding of 1994 Nanguan Art Festival by Changhuaxian wenhua zhongxin (Changhua County Cultural Center ).

1) State-funded Nanguan Training Courses First of all, MOE’s 1991 policy to promote traditional arts education in elementary and junior high schools resulted in a proliferation of nanguan training courses offered in public schools as extra-curricular activities.37 Since the MOE allocated special budgets to cover the tuitions and the costs of the instruments, it became the major financial source for these training courses, and musicians usually got paid for their teaching.

37. For the policy, see above. See Chen 1994 for a list of nanguan training courses offered during this time. 124 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

Beside public schools, nanguan groups also began to follow Wu Kunren’s example to apply for state funding for offering nanguan training courses.38 In addition, state orchestras also began to emulate the efforts of Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra to offer nanguan training courses to their members and to the common public.39 Although these training courses did provide nanguan with more chances of exposure on a grass-root level and even cultivated some potential nanguan performers or appreciators, they also created disputes among nanguan musicians over which group or which musicians would teach, and how much they would be paid. Furthermore, much dispute centered on the teaching method. While veteran musicians tended to follow the traditional method of oral transmission, which took a long time to master a piece, younger musicians usually had better communication with the students and also tended to use some new teaching methods, such as teaching the students how to read traditional nanguan notation, and some even resorted to the use of cipher or staff notation. Consequently younger musicians often became more popular among students than veteran musicians even if their artistry might be lower than the veteran ones, and this often created tension among younger and veteran musicians.

2) Audio-visual Documentation of Nanguan During this period, state agencies began to commission the production of audio-visual documentation of nanguan for the sake of

38. For example, Taipei Minnan yuefu also applied for subsidy from the CCA to start training courses in its club in 1992. 39. For example, Kaohsiung Municipal Chinese Orchestra set up a nanguan group in 1993 and began to offer nanguan training courses not only to their members but also to the public. Meanwhile, Taiwan Provincial Symphony Orchestra initiated a “Nanguan yizhi jihua” (Nanguan Transplantation Project)in 1992, in which musicians of Yazheng zhai were invited to offer nanguan training courses in Lugu , a place in the high mountains of mid-Taiwan where there used to be no nanguan tradition. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 125 preservation and promotion.40 Most of these recording projects featured either HTYF or Huasheng she, another evidence of the popu- larity of these two new star groups. One of the rare exceptions was the CD-book of nanguan songs which I produced under the commission of the CCA. This project was the first large-scale nanguan recording project commissioned by the state. In order to avoid focusing on the few star groups, I invited thirteen singers representing nine different nanguan clubs to make recordings of their representa- tive pieces.41 Due to the old age of most singers recorded, however, many of the recordings had poor vocal quality, and, in the end, only seven songs were selected by a reviewing committee,42 with only four nanguan clubs represented.43 And even the ones included in the final product already showed deterioration in their vocal quality.

40. These include the CD of nanguan wedding music performed by Wu Kunren’s group and produced by CCA in the early 1990s, the set of CD-book of nanguan songs produced by me for CCA and released in 1997, and the CD-book on the appreciation of nanguan performed by HTYF and produced by the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Headquarter in 1994. Beside these, the transplanation project sponsored by the Taiwan Provincial Symphony Orchestra also produced a set of CD and book as teaching materials, performed by HTYF and released in 1994. Huasheng she also issued a set of four CDs under the sponsorship of Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra. Furthermore, Hsu Tsang-houei was commissioned by Taiwan Provincial Government to produce a videotape introducing nanguan in 1994. 41. The groups that were recorded included Taipei Minnan yuefu, Huasheng she, Kinmen Wujiang nanyue she , HTYF, Lujin zhai in Taipei; Qingya yuefu and Hehe yiyuan in Taichung County; Yazheng zhai in Lukang; and Tainnan Nansheng she in Tainan. Moreover, musicians from Chiayi and Kaohsiung also participated. For some groups, more than one singer in each group recorded their singing in this project. Hence alto- gether thirteen singers were recorded. 42. The committee was made up of Shen Xueyong (the then director of CCA), Lü Chuikuan (the advisor for the recording project), and myself. The selection was mainly based on the vocal quality of the singers, the importance and rarity of the songs recorded, and the consideration to include both female and male singers in order to show the differences in their singing styles. 43. These are Huasheng she, HTYF, Taipei Minnan yuefu, and Tainnan Nansheng she, with Tainnan Nansheng she occupying the highest percentage (see Wang 1997). 126 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

Hence, it is no wonder that the musicians wished that the project had been undertaken ten years earlier. The project also revealed the fact that most veteran nanguan singers were getting old, and few younger singers were ready to succeed them. This in turn implies that the scholarly and governmental efforts to promote and revitalize nanguan since the 1970s had achieved limited results in preserving the performance quality of nanguan clubs either through document- ing the veteran musicians or through training younger ones. One also has to admit that this recording project inevitably added to the sense of competition felt among the musicians, especially regarding which singers and which groups would be chosen to be included in the final product.

3) The 1994 Nanguan Art Festival The sense of competition among musicians was most clearly manifested during the first nanguan art festival organized in 1994 by Changhua County Cultural Center (whose name was later changed to Changhua County Cultural Bureau [Changhua wenhua ju ], hereafter CCCB). This festival was part of CCA’s first “Nation-wide Culture and Arts Festival”, which, as mentioned above, was the first time when local cultural centers were asked to design their own art festival with themes that could reflect local cultural characteristics. The planning of the CCCB’s Nanguan Art Festival was undertaken in July 1993, and involved not only the staff of CCCB, but also local cultural workers and nanguan musicians as well as scholars. The festival began in January 1994 and lasted for about three months. It consisted of a series of educational and promotional activities, cultiminating in a two-day out-door gala performance by nanguan clubs from all over Taiwan on March 26 and 27, and a nanguan conference on March 28 and 29, which I was commissioned to organize with assistance from CCCB. During the preparation and the actual implementation of the festival, the staff at CCCB encountered many difficulties dealing with the nanguan clubs, especially the three local ones in Lukang. Most of the difficulties lay in the issue of “which club to feature in a cer- Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 127 tain activity,” an issue that created much dispute and tension among the local nanguan clubs as well as between nanguan musicians and the staff of CCCB. Such dispute and tension were brought to the foreground in the round-table discussion which I organized as the last session of the nanguan conference and which also marked the end of the festival. In this session, entitled “The Continuity of Nanguan in Contempo- rary Society,” I invited many musicians and public school teachers that had been involved in nanguan training courses to openly discuss the problems they encountered. Most of the participants were able to express their feelings rather unreservedly. Most of the opinions expressed were negative, ranging from criticisms about other musicians or clubs, about the CCCB’s inviting musicians from other parts of Taiwan to teach the training course in the festival, about the unfairness in governmental subsidy of different nanguan clubs, about scholars who “exploited” nanguan by using it as a stepping stone for personal gain without having true love for nanguan, and about the deterioration of the human relationships and the tradition of etiquette among nanguan clubs. In addition to the musicians, the director of CCCB also candidly expressed the tremendous difficulties, frustration, and pressure that she and her staff encountered during the planning and implementation of the festival.44 This round-table session was unprecedented in nanguan history in that never before had nanguan musicians had such an official occasion to openly voice their feelings towards other musicians and toward scholars and governmental officials. It also marked the beginning of nanguan musicians’ speaking up for themselves instead of relying on scholars as their mediators and brokers. This trend became even more evident in the fourth stage of state intervention.

44. The content of the round-table discussion was faithfully transcribed and published in the conference proceedings (Wang 1994), with the hope that it would provide a documentation of this historic event as well as a testimony to the many problems created by scholarly and state intervention in nanguan since the late 1970s. This conference was described in detail by Chou (in press). 128 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

4.1995-2003 Regrettably, the problems exposed by the 1994 nanguan art festival in Changhua did not seem to have been heeded by the central government. Instead, state intervention increased to an unprecedented level in the second half of the 1990s due to the establishment of several large-scale state projects and institutions as well as the increasing efforts by local cultural centers and public schools to promote nanguan. These efforts can be largely grouped into three categories: intervention from the central government represented by CCA and its adjunct organizations, intervention from local cultural centers, and intervention through school education and social education. In the following I will discuss these categories and point out their problems and their effects on nanguan. It should be noted that, during this period, nanguan opera has been gaining increasing support from the state, and several nanguan groups are expanding their activities to include both nanguan music and opera. Hence the following discussion will include not only projects on nanguan music but also those on nanguan opera.

1) Intervention from Central Government Represented by Council for Cultural Affairs and Its Adjunct Organizations i. The Folk Arts Preservation and Transmission Project of the National Center for Traditional Arts In 1995, CCA launched a “Folk Arts Preservation Project” to document dying traditional art forms. After the Preparatory Office of National Center of Traditional Arts (hereafter NCTA), an adjunct organization of CCA, was founded in 1996, it took over the above project and expanded its scope to include both preservation and transmission, hence the new title “Minjian yishu baocun chuanxi jihua” (Folk Arts Preservation and Trans- mission Project, hereafter FAPT Project). After the first term of the project was over in 1998, NCTA launched the second term of the project, which lasted until 2003 (Huang 2001a:41). The total budget Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 129 for the FAPT Project is over NT$300 million45 (Lü 2002:28; also con- firmed by Huang 2003) and was meant to fund scholars or artists to carry out projects in three categories: preservation, transmission, and investigation.46 In the last eight years, ten nanguan projects have been commissioned by FAPT Project, with four to transmit nanguan opera, three to transmit nanguan music, two to preserve nanguan music, and one to investigate nanguan music in southern Taiwan. In addition, Changhua County Cultural Bureau (CCCB) was commissioned to simultaneously transmit both nanguan music and opera in addition to beiguan music and opera. Most of these projects lasted for more than one year. The total funding for the above projects approximates NT$53 million, with the funding for each project ranging from NT$0.4 million to NT$17 million. If we discount the beiguan portion from the CCCB project, the total funding for nanguan music and opera projects approximates NT$47 million (see Table 1).47

45. The exchange rate between US and NT dollars from 1998 to 2002 averaged around US$1=NT$33 (see Guo 2002). 46. The call for proposals for the FAPT Project was announced once every year. After the proposals had been received, a reviewing committee consisting of scholars was formed, and it held a meeting to select the projects to be commissioned. For projects in the conservation and investigation categories, there would be a mid-term review and a final review. During such reviews, the project leaders had to submit written reports and to present the progress and result orally. Each project would be reviewed by a committee, whose membership might or might not coincide with that of the committee that selected the proposal of the project. For transmission projects, scholars and NCTA staff members would be sent to visit the projects on site to check on their mid-term progress and their final presentations through actual performances. 47. I am grateful to the NCTA staff for providing me with the data about the amount of funding for each project. Since this information was not openly announced by NCTA, the funding is not shown in Table 1. A comprehensive list of the projects funded by FAPT Projects from 1997 to 2001, albeit without details of the funding, can be found in Huang (2001a). 130 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

Table 1: Nanguan Projects funded by NCTA’s FAPT Project

Categy Object Group (Year Founded) Year Funded* Total

Transmission Opera Qingya yuefu (1953) 1997-1999 3 year

Transmission Opera HTYF (1983) 1997-1999 3 year

Gang-a-tsui juchang nanguan Transmission Opera yuefu 1997-2001, 2003 6 years (1993)

Transmission Opera Hehe yiyuan (1999)* 2000-2003 4 years

Transmission Music Huasheng she (1986) 1997-1998 2 years

Zhonghua xianguan yuetuan Transmission Music (1986)*** Music/ Transmission CCCB’s training courses 1997-2003 7 years Opera Tainan Nansheng she (around Transmission Music 1998, 2002-2003 3 years 1910) Tainan Nansheng she (around Preservation Music 2003 1 year 1910)

Lukang Yazheng zhai (mid-18th Preservation Music 1998 1 year C.) Survey of Nanguan Lin Poji (a researcher) Investigation in 1998 1 year Southern Taiwan

*This is based on the governmental fiscal year. **Although Hehe yiyuan was officially founded in 1999, it already started its activity in 1993. ***Although Zhonghua xianguan yuetuan was officially founded in 1986, it already started its activity in 1984 and its precursor was Zhonghua nanguan yanjiushe , founded in 1971.

Beside the FAPT Project, NCTA also supported nanguan through other means. For example, NCTA provided subsidy for Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 131 short-term projects on nanguan,48 and gave financial aid to traditional artists who were seriously ill or encountering financial difficulties.49 Sometimes NCTA voluntarily presents honorarium to senior nanguan musicians as a token of appreciation on annual holidays. In addition, NCTA also supported nanguan through special projects, such as organizing nanguan concert series, sending nanguan groups abroad, sponsoring nanguan gala concerts, and so on.50 Through the above projects and subsidies, NCTA has obviously become the largest source of state patronage for nanguan groups in recent years. Not only did it provide large amounts of funding to selected groups that were deemed worthy of full-fledged financial support, but it also took active steps to reach out to a wider range of nanguan groups through various subsidies and special projects. Despite NCTA’s efforts, however, the end results are not as satis- factory as one would expect. For example, an analysis of the nanguan projects funded by FAPT Project reveals that nanguan opera

48. Applications for such subsidy were accepted four times a year and were also selected by a reviewing committee. For such subsidized projects, the funding was usually no more than NT$0.5 million and there was no follow-up on the results by NCTA. Although no statistics are available for these subsidized projects, as a reviewer, I remember that several nanguan groups (such as Taipei Minnan yuefu, Lukang Juying she, Huasheng she, Nanguan xinjinzhu jutuan ) received subsidy for their training courses. In addition, Zhuo Shengxiang also received subsidy for the publication of his anthology of nanguan tunes (CDs and books). 49. Applications for such subsidy had to be submitted by certain organizations on behalf of the artists in question and were also determined by a reviewing committee. 50. For example, NCTA commissioned Qingya yuefu to hold the nanguan gala concerts in 1998 and 2000, during which nanguan groups from all over the island were invited to play nanguan together and to enhance freindship. After 2000, this responsibility was transferred to CCCB’s nanguan/beiguan museum. In 1998, NCTA commissioned CCCB to make audio-visual documentation of Lukang Yazheng zhai. In 2000, it sponsored a series of nanguan concerts, with each concert featuring one nanguan group. In the same year, it sent a group of nanguan musicians to attend the nanguan international convention held in Singapore. No statistics are available for most of these projects and therefore cannot be analysed in details here. 132 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 projects tended to get more funding and last for more years than nanguan music projects, and new groups founded in 1980s and 1990s tended to get funded more frequently than veteran groups (see Table 1).51 In addition, Tainan Nansheng she was the only veteran group commissioned, and, even though this project was begun in 1997, it was interrupted for several years until it resumed again in 2002. In contrast, all the three groups funded for the transmission of nanguan music are newly founded groups whose projects carry more the function of “promoting” nanguan to newcomers rather than “transmitting” nanguan’s artisty to experienced students. Such a lack of distinction between “transmission” and “promotion” in the selection of the groups to be funded greatly reduced the potential contribution the FAPT Project could have brought to the transmission of nanguan music through the teaching of veteran musicians in the traditional nanguan groups. Why was there such a heavy concentration on nanguan opera and on newly founded groups in the FAPT Project? Bureaucracy and cultural politics among officials, scholars, and performers certainly affected the selection and evaluation process. Newly founded groups were also better at dealing with the bureaucratic procedures than veteran groups. In my opinion, however, a more basic problem lies in the lack of knowledge and genuine understanding of and respect for the nature and artistry of “nanguan as a music of amateur clubs” on the part of the officials, the scholars involved, and even of some nanguan musicians themselves (more later). Fortunately, things seem to be improving. In 2001, the NCTA held a conference to review its FAPT Project. One of the important conclusions of the conference was to emphasize the so-called “huoti baocun” (literally “live preserving”), interpreted by NCTA

51. It should be noted that, among the four nanguan opera projects, the two on Qingya yuefu and Hehe yiyuan should be considered as one continuous project commissioned to transmit the nanguan opera artistry of Wu Suxia, who first taught at the former group until she left to form the latter group in 1999. A recipient of the Heritage Ward, Wu has been regarded as the only native nanguan opera teacher and has therefore won ample support from the FAPT Project. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 133 officials as (1) the preservation of the artistry of veteran musicians through teaching, (2) the revival of the original context of the artistic genre in question, and (3) the revival of the context for traditional arts in society (Huang 2001b). With this understanding, NCTA began to take a more context- sensitive approach toward the transmission and preservation of nanguan music. First of all, it resumed Tainan Nansheng she’s transmission project in 2002. In 2003, NCTA further commissioned the group to carry out a preservation project that included both the recording of the instrumental suites, which are becoming extinct, and the reconstruction of the traditional way of holding gala concert (known as “zhengxian dahui” ) , which has long ceased to be practiced since the 1960s.52 Since Nansheng she is arguably one of the few veteran nanguan groups that have been able to maintain a substantial number of veteran musicians as well as the traditional practices of nanguan clubs, it is certainly one of the most promising groups to be able to carry out the above plans and to make important contributions to the transmission of nanguan music and its cultural practices. But, will the large amount of funding from the FAPT Project eventually help the group to continue its tradition, or will it corrupt its tradition instead? This will depend on the wisdom of NCTA officials as well as that of the nanguan musicians and the scholars involved. ii.The Subsidy from National Culture and Arts Foundation Beside NCTA, the founding of National Culture and Arts Foundation (hereafter NCAF) in 1996 opened another new venue of state subsidy for nanguan musicians. Since NCAF keeps very clear and open records of its subsidies, I have compiled a list of the nanguan groups that have been subsidized from 1996 to 2002 and summarized it in Table 2. Table 2 shows that, although a total of NT$17.051 million had been used to subsidize eleven nanguan groups, half of the subsidy

52. For the traditional way of holding such gala concerts, see Wang 1999. 134 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

Table 2: NCFA Subsidy on Nanguan Groups from 1997 to 2003 Number of Times Total Amount of Subsidy Group (Year Founded) Subsidized Received (NT$ in millions) HTYF (1983) 20 7.84 Gang-a-tsui nanguan yuefu 17 4.74 (1993) Tainan Nansheng she (1910) 2 1.46

Liyuan yuefang (1995) 2 0.72 Nanguan xinjinzhu jutuan 3 0.668 (2000)

Taipei Minnan yuefu xuetuan (Taipei Minnan yuefu 3 0.66 Students’ Group) (1990’s) Chuanman nanyuetuan 3 0.54 (1992) Lukang juying she (around 1880) 1 0.40 Qingya yuefu (1953) 1 0.36

Tungning yuefu (1997) 1 0.25 Taitung Juying she (early 1900’s) 1 0.10 Sorce: National Culture and Arts Foundation went to HTYF and a quarter to Gang-a-tsui juchang nanguan yuefu (Gang-a-tsui Theater Nanguan Ensemble , hereafter Gang-a-tsui), a newly founded professional nanguan group in 1993. These fundings were given to cover their expenses in space rental, administrative staff, hiring of teachers, annual productions, and domestic and foreign concert tours. That NCAF’s subsidy on nanguan has been concentrated on HTYF and Gang-a-tsui is only natural if we consider the difference between the nature of HTYF and Gang-a-tsui and that of the other nanguan groups. As mentioned before, HTYF is a new group founded in 1983, which quickly rose to stardom due to its ability to put on nicely packaged concerts. Since 1986, HTYF has been performing in all parts of the world. In 1996, HTYF created a new artistic form, which used nanguan music to accompany dance choreo- Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 135 graphed from a few basic nanguan operatic movements. Combined with delicate, luxurious costumes and state-of-the-art lighting and stage design, this new production won HTYF wide acclaim both in Taiwan and abroad. HTYF invented a new term “Liyuan yuewu” (Music and Dance of the Liyuan Opera) for this new art form. From then on, Liyuan yuewu has become HTYF’s trademark and has enabled HTYF to become even more active not only domestically but also internationally. The other group, Gang-a-tsui, was originally an experimental theatre troupe when it was first founded in 1993 under the sponsorship of the Taipei County Cultural Center . Led by its director, Zhou Yichang , who aspired to incorporate traditional elements into experimental theatre, the group began to study nanguan opera and nanguan music as part of its basic training. After two years of training, the group gave its first nanguan concert in 1995. Now the group has become a professional nanguan group and, since 1999, has begun to perform in foreign countries, including Mexico, Japan, Korea, and the United States. From the above, we can see that both HTYF and Gang-a-tsui are professional performing arts groups rather than traditional amateur nanguan music clubs. Consequently, it is no wonder that they could win the subsidy of NCAF much more frequently than the other nanguan groups, since NCAF’s budget is mainly used to subsidize modern art forms instead of traditional arts.53 As for the other nine nanguan groups subsidized by NCAF, five are veteran groups and four are new groups founded in the 1990s. Most of these groups applied for subsidy to offer nanguan training courses, which reflects the increasing trend for nanguan groups, both old and new, to rely on governmental subsidy to sustain their teaching activities and the groups’ continuity.

53. Although such a principle is not clearly stated in NCFA’s official papers, it was in operation at least when I served on the reviewing committee for NCAF in 2001. 136 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 iii.Council for Cultural Affairs’ International Performing Arts Groups CCA’s “International Performing Arts Groups Project” (hereafter IPAG Project) was initiated in 1991 to help sustain and promote outstanding professional groups that exhibited high potential to become internationally active.54 Not sur- prisingly, HTYF and Gang-a-tsui were the only two nanguan groups that met the qualifications and were selected and funded. Starting in 1995, HTYF succeeded in getting annual funding from this project until it was finally cut in 2003.55 Though a late comer, Gang-a-tsui quickly caught up and was funded by this project annually from 1998 up to now (2003). The total funding the two groups received was NT$32.58 million, with HTYF getting NT$14.23 million and Gang-a-tsui NT$8.35 million.56 The funding was aimed to assist the groups with their regular expenses, to strengthen their administrative efficiency, to enable them to create large-scale productions, and to help increase their chances of performing abroad.57

54. This project was later renamed “Outstanding Performing Art Groups Selection and Award Project” in 1998 in order to de- emphasize the international aspect of the project. In 2000, the project was renamed again as “Performing Art Groups Development Project” . For details, see Xie 2001. 55. Even so, HTYF immediately applied for CCA’s newly established subsidy for performing abroad and was awarded NT$1.6 million. See http://www.cca.gov. tw/news/2003/04021.htm This newly founded subsidy is called “Regular fees for international performances” . 56. For details on the amount of money received by the two groups up to the year of 2001, see Xie 2001: 192-98. The information about the amount of subsidy received by Gang-a-tsui in 2002 and 2003 was provided by the group. The amount of subsidy received by HTYF in 2002 can be found at http://www.cdn.com.tw/live /2002/02/01/text/910201e8.htm. 57. Beside IPAG Project, CCA has also sent several nanguan groups abroad to perform in its New York and Paris branch offices. In 1999, when Wu Suxia was still teaching at Qingya yuefu, the group was sent to CCA’s branch in New York to perform nanguan opera in its Taipei Theater. In 2000, Lukang Yazheng zhai was also sent to New York. In 2002, Wu Suxia’s own group, Hehe yiyuan, was sent to CCA’s Paris Branch to perform both nanguan music and nanguan opera. This reflects the rising prominence of Wu Suxia and her nanguan opera teaching in state-funded projects. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 137 iv.Center for Musical Heritage In 2001, the Preparatory Office of the Center for Musical Heritage , which was founded in 1999 as an adjunct organization of CCA,58 commissioned two nanguan projects. One was to document the life history and artistry of Wu Kunren. The other was to make audio-visual recordings of nanguan songs representing each of the tune families in nanguan songs classification system.59

2) Intervention from Local Cultural Centers i. Changhua County Cultural Bureau’s Projects on Nanguan After CCCB held the 1994 Nanguan Art Festival, it persisted in its intervention in nanguan despite the many problems it encountered in the festival, as we have seen above. First, it continued to offer the nanguan training course started in the festival. Then it formed its Nanguan Experimental Group in 1996, whose members remain amateur musicians without salary.60 In 1997, CCCB began to gain support from NCTA’s FAPT Project to carry out a multi-year nanguan/beiguan transmission project in 1997. The project lasted until 2003 and its funding was the largest among the projects funded by the FAPT Project. Each year, three nanguan courses are offered at the same time to accommodate students with different levels of proficiency in nanguan, with different teachers assigned for different courses.61 All the lessons are free. The teachers

58. In 2002, the Center became a part of the NCTA and was renamed Research Institute of Musical Heritage . 59. The former project was carried out by Lin Poji. The latter was by Gang-a- tsui. 60. The group is made up of students from the training courses as well as members of nanguan clubs in Lukang and in the neighboring Taichung County. They meet once a week to have their three-hour lesson from Wu Suxia, who has been the group’s resident teacher since its inception. The maintenance of the group mainly relies on CCCB’s annual budget. For details, see the group’s webpage at http://alpha2.bocach.gov.tw/n032-z.htm. 61. On average, there are 20 to 30 students in each course. Students of advanced-level course also include half of the members of Nanguan Experimental Group . The students meet twice a week for their lessons, each time for 138 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 earn hourly pays for their teachings.62 The teachers for the nanguan courses mostly consist of musicians from the three nanguan clubs in Lukang. In 1999, CCCB’s Nanguan/Beiguan Museum was finally completed and started to operate.63 Since its founding, the museum has been holding the annual nanguan gala concert, with subsidy from NCTA.64 In addition, it published a set of nanguan teaching materials.65 The museum also promotes nanguan in other ways, such as offering short introductory courses for school teachers, sending CCCB’s Nanguan Experimental Group to perform in local school campuses, holding nanguan concerts in the museum to feature the local nanguan groups, and so on. Despite all these efforts, however, old problems exposed in the 1994 nanguan art festival still remain or have even worsened, and new problems have arised. First of all, the relationship between CCCB and the three nanguan clubs in Lukang has become a mix- ture of love and hate. On the one hand, the nanguan clubs depend on CCCB to provide them with opportunities to give concerts and to assist them with applying for subsidy from NCTA and other governmental agencies. On the other hand, however, they also feel threat- ened that CCCB’s training courses and its Nanguan Experimental Group take away their potential students and demand the time of their existing members. Moreover, the old problem of “who gets to teach” and “who gets to perform” remains a constant source of conflict. two hours. 62. Teachers normally get NT$800 per hour, assistant teacher NT$400, but teachers like Wu Suxia who are Heritage Award recipients get NT$1500 per hour. This rate was set by NCTA for all projects funded by its FAPT Project. 63. This was already twelve years after the museum’s initial planning by Hsu Tsang-houei in 1986-1987. 64. According to Zhang Meiling, a staff of the Museum, the annual subsidy from NCTA ranged from NT$0.5 to 0.8 million (Zhang 2003). 65. The set consists of five books accompanied by five corresponding sets of CDs to demonstrate the pieces contained in the books. The whole project was master-minded by Wu Suxia, with the books written by her, the pieces chosen by her, and the music in the CD performed by her together with members of CCCB’s Nanguan Experimental Group and those of the three Lukang nanguan clubs. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 139

The transmission project has been less than successful due to several reasons. First of all, despite its nominal goal to “transmit” nanguan, the project was designed more like a “promotional” activity to offer free lessons for the general public to get a taste of nanguan. The artistry of the teachers is another basic problem, because many of the veteran musicians in the local area have passed away, and there are insufficient veteran musicians left to meet the need of the large number of training courses offered by CCCB. Moreover, when appointing teachers, CCCB officials also had to be “fair” to the local nanguan groups in order to avoid conflicts. With all these con- straints, CCCB’s transmission project could only achieve limited results, despite the large sum of funding it has received from NCTA since 1997. The gala concerts held annually by CCCB under the sponsorship of NCTA provides us with another good example of how state- run nanguan activities often fail to capture the meaning and mechanism of such activities in their original context. As Wu Huohuang sharply observed (Wu 2000), traditional nanguan gala concerts used to allow for spontaneous interaction among the musicians either when they listened to and commented on other musicians’ playing on stage, or when they themselves played on stage impromptuously with musicians from other groups, or when they chatted freely about nanguan during the banquets as part of such events. In contrast, CCCB’s gala concerts are more like western concerts, with little interaction among the musicians or among the musicians and the officials except for some superficial greetings, and each group mostly sits quietly in the auditorium seats waiting for its turn to get on the stage and perform its pieces according to the pre- determined program. Most musicians leave as soon as the concert is over. Thus, although the event may look more orderly on the sur- face, it lacks the warmth and the spontaneous exchanges of musical knowledge, artistry, and friendship among the musicians, which were the essential elements of such events traditionally.66

66. For more information on such gala concerts, see my previous writing (Wang 1999). 140 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 ii. Taipei Cultural Bureau’s Nanguan Project In 2000, Taipei Cultural Bureau (TCB), which was founded in 1999, started a plan to investigate the “endangered traditional arts” (shiwei chuantong yishu ) in Taipei, and nanguan was chosen to be the subject of the first project of this plan. In TCB’s design, the project had to be finished within 10 months and had to accomplish four tasks, including a survey of the history of nanguan groups in Taipei, a bibliography of past research on nanguan, the production of a set of nanguan teaching materials, and that of a set of nanguan appreciation materials, with the last two in the form of books and audio-visual recordings targeted at 4th to 6th graders; the total budget was over NT$4.5 million. TCB com- misioned the head of the Department of Traditional Music at Taipei National University of the Arts to carry out the project. This commision, however, was much ques- tioned by the scholarly and nanguan circles mainly because the then head of the Department, You Changfa , was a western- trained composer who had limited knowledge about nanguan. Under You’s leadership, the actual task of the project was carried out by several of his former students who are music teachers in primary and secondary schools. Fortunately, one of them is a nanguan researcher and another a beiguan researcher. Hence they were able to produce a useful survey of the history of nanguan groups in Taipei, a comprehensive bibliography, and a report on their field interviews (see TCB 2002a, 2002b, and 2002c). The teaching materials and appreciation materials, however, were lacking in several aspects. The written introductions were plagued by the authors’ unfamiliarity with nanguan and their misin- terpretation of it from a western-classical-music point of view. The audio-visual materials were also problematic in terms of the quality of performance and the audio-visual production. Beside these problems, the selection of the musicians and the payment for their recordings again caused much conflict among the musicians and among the musicians and the project executors. Thus, despite the sincere efforts of You Changfa and his students as well as the good intention of TCB, TCB’s nanguan project provides us with another Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 141 example of the misguided nature and ineffectiveness of state-commissioned projects.67

3) Intervention through School Education and Social Education i. Department of Traditional Music at TNUA In 1995, the National Institute of the Arts (now Taipei National University of the Arts , hereafter TNUA) set up its Department of Traditional Music, which is the first department of music in universities in Taiwan to offer programs for students to major in nanguan, beiguan, guqin (seven-stringed zither), or pipa, instead of the usual western classical musical instruments or the guoyue instruments as in other department of music. Run by Lü Chuikuan in its beginning years, the department invited veteran nanguan musicians to teach there, almost all in their 70s or 80s.68 These veteran musicians generally followed the traditional method of teaching by rote and were assisted by the junior faculty members of the department.69 Most of the students came with a background in guoyue and entered the department with little prior experience in nanguan. Some of them only took nanguan lessons for a few months (or even weeks) before the entrance exam, and others may have taken nanguan courses offered in school.70

67. Beside TCB’s nanguan project, Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra, which became one of TCB’s subordinate agencies, formed its nanguan ensemble in 1996 and has frequently presented nanguan concerts in its annual Traditional Arts Festival. At first, the concerts mainly featured its own group with assistance from other groups. Starting in 2000, it has enlarged these single concerts to become a concert series in which each concert features a single nanguan group. 68. These included Wu Kunren and other musicians from Taipei Minnan yuefu, Tainan Nansheng she, and Lukang Yazheng zhai. These musicians are treated as professors both in terms of their titles and their salaries. 69. For more on the department, see TCB 2002c:166 and Lü 2002:168-70, 189, 191. 70. A majority of the students who entered the department took lessons with Zhuang Guozhang either in the courses he offered at several operatic schools wehre he taught (see below) or in his own group, Zhonghua xianguan yuetuan (also known as Shan Yun ). Consequently his group has attracted an increasing number of students and has expanded its space and its number of teach- 142 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

Since 1999, the department began to produce its graduates. Several of these graduates went on to pursue their master’s degrees in traditional arts, some entered HTYF and Gang-a-tsui respectively to become professional nanguan musicians, and one joined CCCB’s Nanguan/Beiguan Museum staff. Other graduates simply quit nanguan after graduation. As the first department to offer degrees in nanguan, it has encountered many problems. For example, the old musicians’ traditional way of teaching is difficult to fit into the semester system of the university education, and is hard to be appreciated and absorbed by the students who still knew little about nanguan. Among the teachers, there is a sense of competition regarding who is more popular with the students and who can teach the more difficult repertoire. As for the students, they mostly came with the purpose of getting a university degree, and few of them had the chance to cultivate their interest and appreciation for nanguan in the environment of traditional nanguan clubs, where nanguan is part of the way of life instead of a degree to be acquired through a series of courses and exams. Most importantly, most students cannot see a future in nanguan after their graduation. After all, despite the existence of the two professional nanguan groups (HTYF and Gang-a-tsui), nanguan remains largely a hobby for amateur musicians rather than a profession. Consequently, it is difficult for students to devote themselves to their study.71 In the summer of 2002, the university found it necessary to reform the department. This resulted in some change in the department’s curriculum design and the method of examination in order to strengthen the students’ ability to play as an ensemble and to master the more advanced repertory. Despite these changes, however, it seems that some of the fundamental problems still remain unre- solved, such as the incompatibility of nanguan as an amateur musi- ers to accommodate its growing student body (For more, see TCB 2002c:2-7, 96- 98). 71. For criticism on the problems of the department, also see Chou 2002 and Lü 2002: 166. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 143 cian’s hobby and as a professional career to be pursued through a university degree. ii. Proliferation of Nanguan Training Courses in Schools and in Society Since 1995, nanguan training courses have proliferated at all school levels. They have become more widespread among elementary and secondary schools than the first half of 1990s.72 In addition, several universities and colleges have begun to offer nanguan courses as part of their curriculum.73 Beside schools, trainings courses are also offered by nanguan groups and by public and private organizations, such as cultural centers, private foundations, and temples. Among these training courses, it is fortunate that the training courses offered by veteran groups, such as Huasheng she since 1987 and Taipei Minnan yuefu since 1992, have produced a number of new nanguan musicians who have more or less preserved the style of the veteran nanguan musicians. Most of the other state-funded training courses, however, have failed to produce similarly satisfacto- ry results. In order to make nanguan easier to learn in a group setting, these training courses resorted to the use of notation, and

72. According to a list compiled by Lü Chuikuan (2002:329-30), there were at least seventeen schools that offered nanguan courses as extracurricular activity in the years of 2001 and 2002. The list, however, has at least left out the training course taught by Cai Qingyuan in Beigang’s Jianguo Junior High School in Yunlin County (Cai 2002). Thus the actual number of the training courses in those two years should be more than seventeen. 73. For example, Wu Kunren of Huasheng she has taught at the Department of Music at TNUA; Wang Xinxin of HTYF has taught at the Graduate Institute of Theatre at TNUA and the Department of Guoyue at National Taiwan Academy of the Arts (now National Taiwan Univeristy of the Arts), and the Graduate Institute of Musicology at National Taiwan University ; Zhuang Guozhang of Zhonghua xianguan has taught at the National Fuxing Theatre School and the National Guoguang Theatre School , which were combined to become the National Taiwan Junior College of Performing Arts . For details, see TCB 2002c: 38, 96, 165-71. 144 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 teachers often can only teach the simplest pieces. By the end of the training courses, in order to fulfill the funding agency’s requirement, concerts are often presented with students singing or playing in group, in contrast to the principle of one instrument per person in traditional nanguan playing. In recent years, it has become fashion- able for teachers to replace nanguan traditional repertory with Tang dynasty poems set to nanguan tunes in order to make the learning easier (since most students are already familiar with these poems and do not have to struggle with the unfamiliar nanguan lyrics). All of these may have increased nanguan’s exposure to the general public, but they may also have created some wrong or bad impres- sions about nanguan.74

VI. Intervention, Impact, and Interpretation

Having gone through the details and the problems of state intervention in nanguan in the past two decades, I will now summarize the four stages of state intervention discussed above, and interpret how it has affected nanguan and why it has failed to produce more positive results.

1. Summary of State Intervention in Nanguan since 1980 Table 3 summarizes the four stages of state intervention in nanguan since 1980, outlining the modes of intervention and their primary sponsors, the veteran groups patronized, and the new groups patronized (with new groups defined as groups founded after 1980) in each stage. Groups marked with asterisks (*) indicate that these groups were only patronized once either by presentation in concerts or through subsidy.

74. Also see Lü 2002: for criticism on these training courses. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 145

Table 3: Four Stages of State Intervention in Nanguan from 1980 to 2003 Stages Modes (Primary Sponsor) Patronized Veteran Groups Patronized New Groups 1980- 1. Survey of artists (MOE) Taipei TMinnanable yuefu 3: Four 1984 2. Concert promotion (CCA) Tainan Nansheng she (mainly through Folk Theater, StagesLukang Yazheng of zhai State 1982-1986) (Kaohsiung Hesheng she)* 1985- 1. Heritage Award (1985-1994) Taipei Minnan yuefu Huasheng she 1989 (MOE) Tainan Nansheng she HTYF 2. Important Tradtional Artists Lukang Yazheng zhai (1989, 1997)(MOE) Lukang Juying she 3. Training courses held by Huasheng she (MOE) 4. Promotion of HTYF through domestic and foreign concerts (CCA) 1990- 1. Nanguan training courses in InterventionTaipei Minnan yuefu in Huasheng she 1994 schools (MOE) Tainan Nansheng she HTYF 2. Audio documentation of nan- NanguanLukang Yazheng zhaifrom guan (CCA) 1980Lukang toJuying 2003 she 3. 1994 nanguan art festival Lukang Eyun zhai (CCCB) Stages 1995- 1. Preservation and Transmission Taipei Minnan yuefu HTYF 2003 Projects (NCTA’s FAPT Qingya tuefu Gang-a-tsui Project) Lukang Juying she Huasheng she 3. Nanguan gala concerts, nan- Lukang Yazheng zhai Liyuan yuefang guan concerts for the general Lukang Eyun zhai Tungning yuefu public, and other subsidized (Taitung Juying she)* Chuanmen nanyuetuan projects (NCTA) Nanguan xinjinzhu jutuan 4. Training courses in nanguan CCCB’s Nanguan clubs (NCAF, NCTA) Experimental Group 5. Supporting HTYF and Gang-a- tsui (NCTA, NCAF, CCA’s IPAG Project) 6. Nanguan/Beiguan Museum, Nanguan Experimental Group, large-scale training courses, annual gala concert, production of teaching materials (CCCB) 7. Survey of Taipei’s nanguan history, biliography of nanguan, production teaching materials and appreciation materials (TCB) 8. Offering nanguan major at TNUA’s Department of Traditional Music (MOE) 9. Nanguan training courses in schools (MOE) 146 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9

From this table, we can see a continuing increase in the variety of means of intervention, the number of groups affected, the number of state agencies involved, and the number of the training courses offered and concerts held. We also see an obvious increase in newly founded groups sprouting up rapidly in the fourth stage and their activeness in gaining governmental funding. In addition, there has also been a continual increase in the amount of fame, exposure, and money received by nanguan groups. In the first stage, surveys and concerts brought little financial reward to musicians except for perhaps some small performance fee. By the second stage, the Heritage Award brought fame plus some token honorarium not only to veteran groups but also to two newly founded groups, Huasheng she and HTYF. By the third stage, training courses in schools expanded nanguan musicians’ exposure and prompted musicians who were originally not teachers in nanguan groups to teach nanguan in schools and to get payment for their teaching; state production and release of recordings of nanugan music increased the exposure of the groups recorded and also brought token payment for their recording activities; the first state- funded nanguan art festival organized by CCCB in 1994 marked the beginning of increased exposure and income for local nanguan groups in Changhua County (mainly Lukang) and in Taichung County (mainly for nanguan teacher Wu Suxia) through concerts, teaching, and recording projects organized by CCCB. Compared with the earlier stages, the fourth stage saw a tremendous increase in the amounts of money given and the chances of exposure received. At the national level, NCTA brought millions of dollars to the few groups commissioned to transmit nanguan opera and music on the one hand, and, on the other hand, extended its patronage to a wide range of nanguan groups by subsi- dizing their training courses and activities or by holding nanguan concerts. In contrast to NCTA’s wide-ranging patronage, NCAF’s subsidy and CCA’s IPAG project focused mainly on HTYF and Gang-a- tsui, the only two professional nanguan groups, and subsidized them with millions of dollars to foster the group toward further pro- fessionalization and to increase their chances of appearing on inter- Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 147 national occasions. On local levels, in Changhua County, the millions of dollars that CCCB’s Nanguan/Beiguan Musuem received from NCTA’s FAPT Project became a substantial regular income for local nanguan musicians who were selected to teach in the many training courses offered by CCCB; in Taipei City, TCB further subsidized local nanguan musicians and featured them in the introductory materials on nanguan produced by its 2001 nanguan project. In addition to the above, nanguan training courses offered island-wide at all school levels and in many social educational institutions provided ample opportunities for musicians to teach in schools and in social organizations, which again gave them further exposure and income. In all the above-mentioned training courses, recipients of the Heritage Award were privileged with more exposure and payment than the other musicians. In short, the fourth stage represented an unprecedented increase in island-wide exposure and monetary income for nanguan musicians, all due to state intervention.

2. Effects of State Intervention on Nanguan and the Reasons behind Its Failure How has state intervention in nanguan since 1980 affected nanguan groups and nanguan music in terms of quantity and quality? Has it achieved its goal to preserve and transmit nanguan for future generation? Compared to the situation of nanguan twenty years ago,75 the past two decades of state intervention in nanguan certainly has increased the number of nanguan groups in total,76 stimulated the

75. For a review of the development of nanguan in postwar Taiwan, especially in the past two decades, see Lü 1994, Wang 1995, Li 1996, and Chou in press. For an overall review of nanguan and its interaction with cultural policy and socio-political change in Taiwan history, see Wang 1997. 76. According to Hsu’s research on nanguan in 1979, there were about 64 nanguan clubs known to have existed, with 12 that were active, 20 less active, 14 barely alive, 8 extinct, and 8 unclear (see Hsu 1982:8-10). The list of nanguan groups compiled by Lü Chuikuan in 2002 shows 80 clubs in existence (Lü 2002:133-35). However, according to the estimation of Chen Xinping based on the groups that had participated in the nanguan activities from 1996 to 2000, only 41 nanguan clubs were active (Chen 2000). 148 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 formation of new groups, and greatly expanded the number of the people exposed to nanguan either through taking training courses, attending concerts, or learning about nanguan through written or audio-visual materials produced by state agencies or by private nanguan groups. It has also raised the visibility of nanguan in the international art scene through subsiding nanguan performances abroad. Thus, state intervention has indeed succeeded in disseminating nanguan to a wider public and in keeping alive the activities of nanguan groups. The increase of the number of nanguan groups, however, should not be interpreted as an increase in the number of veteran nanguan musicians. On the contrary, a closer look at the membership of each group shows that it has become common for members of different clubs to overlap, a practice that was once prohibited by traditional nanguan clubs. Such a prohibition was still largely in effect during the early 1980s but was gradually loosened with the rise of the new groups in the 1980s, such as HTYF and Huasheng she, which were mostly one-man companies that relied on the assistance of musicians from other clubs. By the 1990s, such overlapping had become prevalent in the Taipei area (see Wang 1995). Thus, although the number of nanguan groups and nanguan novices have increased, the actual number of veteran musicians has decreased. Now, senior musicians are passing away, yet the number of younger musicians who are mature enough to succeed them is much smaller. Consequently, the total number of experienced nanguan musicians is in serious decline. Beside the decline in quantity, the quality of nanguan musicians and groups have also deteriorated. First of all, state intervention altered the social workings of nanguan groups. Twenty years ago, nanguan groups still mostly relied on their leaders and financial supporters to sustain the finance of the clubs. Now, with gener- ous subsidies available from state agencies and with enterprises opt- ing to support modern art forms instead of local traditional ones, veteran nanguan clubs increasingly depended on state funding as their major source of financial support. In addition, state subsidies stimulated the formation of new groups which relied on offering training Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 149 courses or putting on performances to gain state funding. With the rapid increase of state funding in the fourth stage of state intervention, such mechanism of operation began to be adopted by an increasing number of veteran nanguan groups and consequently led them away from their nature as amateur music clubs. State intervention has also altered the mentality of nanguan musicians. Twenty years ago, nanguan still remained largely a self- cultivating pastime. Now, nanguan has become a commodity with which to make money, achieve fame, tour abroad, and a recognized cultural heritage. Nanguan groups are frequently paid by state agencies and private organizations to perform on various state functions and social events or to teach training courses, and musicians often compete for “who gets to play for how much money” during a teaching or a performance engagement. Thus, money and fame brought by state intervention has resulted in the deterioration of the identity and perceived integrity of nanguan musicians as amateur musicians. In addition to altering the mentality of nanguan musicians and the nature of nanguan clubs, the money and fame brought by state intervention have become major sources of conflict among nanguan groups and among individual musicians, and have contributed to a deterioration of the relationships within the nanguan community. Certainly, conflicts among nanguan groups and musicians were not unheard of in the traditional context, but these were mostly caused by competition in artistry rather than fighting for personal gains (see, for example, Shi 1965: 19). Traditionally, nanguan musicians put much emphasis on mutual assistance. Hence nanguan musicians often say: “dingguan xiangteng; xiaguan xiangpin” , (“dingguan xiotiã, eguan xiobiã” in Minnan dialect, meaning that the music clubs help one another, while the martial clubs fight with one another).77 Nanguan musicians also often emphasize

77. I should thank Chen Xinping for telling me about this saying. For a more detailed explanation of this proverb as it is known in the Pescadores (Penghu ), see Hong 2001:109. That dingguan refers to quguan and xiaguan [eguan] to wuguan was also mentioned by Chou (in press). 150 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 the nature of nanguan as a “liyue” (“music of rites”), which demands proper conduct and etiquette in human relationships both within a club and among different clubs. The inter-club relationships were maintained through mutual visits (known as baiguan ) and through the holding of annual gala concerts. It is through such mechanism of networking that nanguan clubs maintained a community of their own with close connections among groups (even within the greater nanguan diaspora). Such a sense of community was still well maintained up to the early 1980s. By the end of the third stage of state intervention, however, there were already open conflicts among nanguan groups, as exposed by the roundtable discussion in the 1994 nanguan art festival held by CCCB. During the fourth stage, with tremendous amounts of money involved, the conflicts have continued to worsen. Furthermore, the quality of nanguan musical artistry has also been going downhill if compared with the situation twenty years ago. This is mainly due to the decrease in the younger musicians’ knowledge about nanguan and its cultural practices, the shrinking of the repertoire that can still be played, and the decline in the quality of performance. To take the shrinking of repertoire as an example, traditionally every nanguan club should be able to play the five basic instrumental suites, known as the wudatao (literally “five big suites”), but now there are only a few veteran musicians in Taiwan who can perform them all from memory. With regards to singing, traditional gala concerts required that a song should not be sung twice within the same day,78 but now it is common for a song to be repeated several times by different singers in state-funded gala concerts, since most singers are beginners and have a limited repertoire. As for the quality of performance, the deterioration of the nanguan community as a whole has greatly reduced the chances for musicians to keep up their artistry through interaction with other veteran musicians. The demands for teaching in the proliferating train-

78. This is to show respect for the other singers. Thanks for Chen Xinping for adding this comment. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 151 ing courses further deprived them of their time for practice. Most importantly, nanguan as an ensemble music requires the subtle interaction and close collaboration among the musicians, and it is through years of practicing as a group that the playing can achieve nanguan’s ideal of “ harmony in differences” (known as he ). Such an ideal has become increasingly difficult to achieve now. In addition to the lowering of the quality of nanguan performance in general, state-sponsored presentation of nanguan on concert stages has also contributed to a change in the nature of nanguan music, from a self-cultivating pastime to an art form designed to appeal to an audience unfamiliar with it.79 Traditionally, nanguan was meant to entertain oneself or deities; even during traditional gala concerts, which are comparabel to modern concert settings, everyone on stage and off stage was familiar with nanguan music and its cultural practices. When put on a contemporary concert stage and performed for unfamiliar ears, however, nanguan’s introspective nature, slow tempo, subtle dynamic contrasts, and the static poise and expression of its musicians, all contribute to the common impression that traditional nanguan looks and sounds monotonous when compared with its western musical counterparts. Consequently nanguan musicians began to think of ways to adapt nanguan to the modern concert stage. Some groups, such as HTYF, take the elitist route and transform nanguan into a modern theatrical art form, with nanguan subjugated as an accompaniment for dance rather than remaining a self-contained art form. In the eyes of most nanguan musicians, such theatricalized performances are no longer nanguan and therefore they seldom attend such performances. In contrast to the elitist route, some other groups take the populist route to appeal to the taste of the general public. They add simple acting and danc- ing or combine nanguan opera into the program in order to make it more interesting and lively. Such modifications are taking nanguan away from its introspective nature and bringing it closer to populari-

79. For an analysis of the unfeasibility of presenting nanguan music in a modern auditorium, see Wu 1996. 152 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 zation or even vulgarization.80 From the above, it is clear that, although state intervention in nanguan has succeeded in disseminating nanguan to a wider public and in keeping alive certain kinds of nanguan activities, it has achieved limited success in preserving and transmitting nanguan both in terms of its musical traditions and its cultural practices. Why did state intervention fall short of its original goal? I propose that it is mainly due to the Nationalist government’s cultural policy to uphold Western and national art forms and downgrade local traditional arts, to the westernized music education in school curriculum in postwar Taiwan, and to the rapid westernization, industrialization, urbanization, and globalization that Taiwan society went through during the past decades.81 These were the reasons that caused nanguan to lose its potential successors and its financial supporters and resulted in its gradual decline before 1980. They were also the reasons behind the lack of knowledge and genuine understanding and appreciation of the nature and value of nanguan by the officials, the scholars, the general public, and even some of the nanguan musicians. Such lack of understanding and appreciation prevented state officials and the scholars involved to devise modes of intervention that took into consideration the nature of nanguan and the ecosystem of nanguan community. The dominance of Western music and the Western concept of modern performing arts also exerted much influence on how officials and scholars evaluated, interpret, and promoted nanguan. As a result, what was meant to help nanguan often became sources of conflict among nanguan musicians and resulted in the deterioration of the nanguan community both in terms of its musical quality and its members’ integrity as amateur musicians. It also resulted in the commodification, vulgarization, and theatricalization of nanguan music and the professionaliza-

80. As mentioned before, this was also what happened in mainland China since the 1950’s under the influence of Chinese Communist Party’s proletarian cultural policy. 81. For similar views on how westernised music education has contributed to the demise of local traditional arts, see Chen Yuxiu 1998:35. Amateur Music Clubs and State Intervention/Wang Ying-fen 153 tion of nanguan musicians.

VII. Conclusion

In the summer of 2002, I once had a long conversation with an NCTA official to discuss the problems of state intervention in nanguan. I compared state intervention in nanguan with feeding a sick patient with lots of rich food or medicine which might, in fact, be against the nature of the physical condition of the patient; perhaps what the patient needs is simply some fresh air, some water, and some loving care. Similarly, state intervention in nanguan has neglected the nature of nanguan as a self-cultivating pastime and has imposed upon it large sums of money and promotional activities which are against its nature. These bring more damage to it than benefit. Fortunately, there remain a few nanguan groups that resist state intervention and still make efforts to keep the traditional practices of amateur nanguan clubs alive. Youchang guang’an nanyue she in Kaohsiung is a good example. It still maintains its close association with a temple, refuses to apply for state funding, declines invitations to play for money, and insists on maintaining traditional etiquette among nanguan clubs. In the minds of its members, keeping the quality and nature of nanguan as an amateur musician’s pastime is just as important, or perhaps more important, than increasing the quantity of new musicians for nanguan. “If the result of transmission is to create a generation of new musicians that completely distorted nanguan’s original character, then what’s the meaning of such transmission?” (Chen 2000). Hence, for these “conservative” musicians, using the theatricalized or popularised nanguan to attract more people to learn nanguan “will only mis- lead the public and quicken the decline and eventual death of nanguan traditions” (ibid.). Instead, they prefer that nanguan remain practiced by a small circle of musicians who can genuinely appreci- ate nanguan’s quality as a refined art form that takes a lifetime to cultivate and master as an amateur musician’s pastime. After twenty years of state efforts to disseminate and promote nanguan, I believe 154 Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore 141 2003.9 that it is time for the state to stop striving for quantity and think about how to help nanguan in a way that can maintain its tradition as a self-cultivating pastime for amateur musicians.

Acknowledgements

Some preliminary ideas expressed in this paper were presented as a conference paper published in the proceedings of the conference (see Wang 1996). Thanks should go to the officials and staff at various state and private organizations for assisting me in gathering data on state cultural policy and projects on nanguan. These include Huang Suzhen and Lin Jianhua , Xue Yinshu , and Kong Lingyi of National Center for Traditional Arts ; Chen Shuwei of National Culture and Arts Foundation ; Zhang Meiling of the Nanguan/Beiguan Museum of Changhua County Cultural Bureau , and Huang Jiaqing of the Chinese Folk Arts Foundation . Thanks should also go to Qiu Kunliang for sharing his views and experiences; to Chen Xinping (a nanguan musician of Youchang Guang’an Nanyue she in Kaohsiung ) who made valuable comments on the draft of this paper; to Cai Yulin , a fellow nanguan research er, for assisting me with finding relevant information; and to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The writing of this paper was made possible by a visiting fellowship at the Humanities Research Center of the National Science Council ( ), which allowed me to take leave from my teaching responsibilities during the spring of 2003. In terms of orthography, pinyin system is used for all terms unless an author has a customary way of transliterating his or her name.

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